


when sorrow shoots her darts

by orphan_account



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bathing/Washing, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Love Confessions, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mild Sexual Content, Misunderstandings, Nightmares, Reconciliation, Slow Burn, Touch Aversion, Trans Male Character, Unrequited Love, that is the only time you will ever see that tag from me, yeah?? ill fuckin do it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:21:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23247679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: ‘How terrible, when I am king I will do all in my power to rectify this’ Dimitri would like to say, but instead he just sort of groans, which makes Sylvain raise an eyebrow, which makes Dimitri jealous and sad because he cannot do that.--Dimitri and Sylvain through the academy, the war, and beyond.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Mercedes von Martritz, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 12
Kudos: 76





	1. splendid isolation

**Author's Note:**

> Finally, I'm actually writing a pairing. Ground is being broken here. Sylvain is trans in this because uh *checks papers* I like him 
> 
> Disclaimer: I am trans, I'm writing from my own experience. If anything is too egregious let me know and I'll fix it. 
> 
> also additional cw for sylvain being himself wrt abuse, sex as self-harm, dubious consent, et cetera. If the sylvain crowd here has read my other shit then you're good to go, because this is far lighter. Also cw for some referenced transphobia.

He wakes to the moon shining in his left eye, sweat lingering on the back of his neck and making him feel filthy like a bone one of the monastery dogs had been slobbering on. The nightmares slip through his fingers as he blinks the sleep crusted at the corners of his eyes, boiling in flame, the coppery aftertaste of blood, limbs paraded on pikes,  _ damn you Dimitri, you did this to us, damn you, damn you, YOU DAMNED ME TO HELL DIMITRI- _

They’ve become rather rote at this point, a tired story read one too many times. When he was smaller he had a treasured book of fables that he demanded to be read aloud almost every day. Such things had long since passed of course, but the sensation of trailing his fingers across familiar, worn pages remains the same. 

The pages burn and curl at the edges, his fingers blister. His mother screams until her throat breaks, and the doors bulge inwards with blood.

They are rattling, he corrects himself. Blood can wait, the door is merely rattling because someone is knocking. A natural phenomenon. He never heard his mother scream.

Oh, knocking. At this time of night? He could pretend to sleep. A prince would answer. Pretending to sleep would fool himself least of all. His feet are on the floor before he even finishes the thought. 

The door swings inwards and he is met eye-to-eye with Sylvain, his droopy hazel eyes sweeping up and down Dimitri’s form as he leans against the doorframe with the sort of casual attitude that seems to be exclusive to him alone. 

“Sylvain” he greets “Did you need something?” 

Sylvain raises an eyebrow. “I heard you yell, so I came to check up on you. Make sure you weren’t getting attacked or anything.” 

Concern. How very like Sylvain. He may have changed in many ways since their time as children, but his older-sibling instinct has always remained. It is a shame that it is completely wasted upon the likes of him.

“As you can see, I am perfectly fine. I was simply having a nightmare.” Sylvain’s other eyebrow rises to join the raised one and Dimitri flusters. He does not like the look Sylvain is giving him, like he knows something that he does not. After so many years of being friends he has learned that Sylvain is far smarter than most give him credit for. “I-... Thank you. For your concern.” It is not like him to stumble over his words like this. A lack of sleep perhaps? 

A despicable smirk stretches across Sylvain’s lips. “Just doin’ my duty, Your Highness.” The smirk changes to something a little softer, less like a dagger and more like a butter knife. “Do you wanna talk about it?” At Dimitri’s raised eyebrows (he could never manage to raise just one) he backpedals quickly, going to scratch the back of his neck. “I mean- you don’t have to. It’s just Ingrid sometimes, or, well, used to like to talk about that sorta stuff. Said it helped.” The smirk returns in full force yet again. It’s almost fascinating how many expressions Sylvain seems to cycle through in one conversation. He could watch for hours. “Personally I don’t see the appeal. But it might help.” 

That is interesting. He hardly ever shares his personal opinion on matters that do not include the people he wants to bed or the amount of work the professor gives out. “Do you get nightmares often?” 

If his grin was sharp before, it is positively wicked now. “Me? Nah, I don’t exactly have a lot going on up here” he raps his knuckles against his head “‘cept maybe a date gone wrong. But this isn’t about me.”

_ this is all your fault Dimitri you did this SAVING ME IS THE LEAST YOU COULD DO-  _ “I would rather not speak about it.” 

“Yeah, of course. It was only a suggestion. Now-” he stretches “if you’re okay, I’m gonna head off. Got things waiting for me” he punctuates with a wink. 

Heat spreads along his cheeks as he realizes what Sylvain is implying. “If you have a girl or- whoever back in your room, I will not be happy.”

His head bobs as he chuckles, walking in the direction of his room. It’s a nice sight, and for a moment he can see why the man seems to attract so many dates.“What, a guy can’t read a book by himself? You don’t have a lot of faith in me, do you?” 

His face heats up further in mortification. “I would not say that…”

He laughs again, softer this time as he opens his door. “It’s fine, it’s fine. G’night, Your Highness.” 

“Ah, goodnight Sylvain.” he says as the door closes, leaving him alone in the dark hallway. He feels incredibly awkward suddenly, standing alone, and hurries back to his room. He always seems to have that effect on him. Dimitri is not socially inept by any means, but in the wake of Sylvain’s natural charm he flounders like a recently hatched swan. 

The awkward feeling is replaced with a wave of exhaustion, and Dimitri all but stumbles to bed. His head hits the pillow like a rock, and he spends the night without dreams. 

* * *

“Your Highness!” Sylvain cheers as he corners Dimitri in the dining hall one afternoon. “Just the man I wanted to see.” 

“Sylvain?” he asks, bewildered by his presence. Last he caught wind of him he was flirting with some poor girl by the stables. On the one hand he is somewhat glad that he left the girl alone, but on the other hand... 

“What do you want from me?”

He leans against the wall with one arm, effectively trapping Dimitri in one place. “C’mon, don’t be so suspicious. I just wanted to ask if you’d like to go into town with me tonight, grab a bite to eat.” 

He is well aware that Sylvain’s smirk is caused by the confused look on his face, and it does nothing to help his opinion that Sylvain is up to no good. “This better not be a ploy to get me a date. I told you that I have no interest in any… romantic trysts.” 

“Trysts?” he chuckles. “Goddess, you really are a fifty-year-old. And no, this isn’t a ploy.” His smile turns softer around the edges and Dimitri stares. Has he always had freckles? “I just wanted to spend some time with a friend. I feel like we don’t hang out as much.”

Dimitri frowns. “Well, I am the Prince. It is to be expected that I would not have much time to waste.” They are faint, but noticeable, especially so close. The largest and most visible is at the corner of his eye, like an inkblot surrounded by calligraphy. It crinkles when he smiles.

He pouts exaggeratedly. “This won’t be a waste of time, I promise. A prince has got to spend some time with his subjects too, you know.” It’s… cute, he decides. Sylvain had always been quite pretty growing up and has, objectively, become very handsome as of late, but the freckles are a cute touch. 

“I suppose I could accept… On one condition.” Since when has he ever been the type to label things as ‘cute’? Or wax poetic about a person's looks at all for that matter? 

The mark rises as he smirks. “Oh yeah? And what might that be?” 

“That you will not use this as an excuse to flirt with anyone.” ‘Wax poetic’. It was an objective observation. A ruler must be observant, after all. To notice that someone is particularly gifted in the physical department means nothing at all. Really, he thinks, waxing poetic. He is not some love-struck maiden. He cannot afford the luxury of having romantic feelings for anyone. 

“Yeah, sure. Pinky swear.” He does not hold out his pinky, suggesting bad omens for the evening. “Meet you here at five?” 

“Five seems reasonable.”

“Great” he says and struts off in the direction of the fishing pond, to snatch some poor girl in his claws undoubtedly. 

“Oh!” he hears as he makes to leave himself. He sees Sylvain at the exit, unphased by the people staring as he calls across the room. “And wear something a little nicer!”

His face heats up as people look in his direction, and in that moment Dimitri is absolutely certain that Sylvain is going to be the death of him. 

* * *

  
  


Sylvain laughs when he sees him at five, and continues laughing as they walk side-by-side to town. Something makes Dimitri want to cling to his laugh, grab it in fistfuls and keep it to himself like a prized brooch locked in a jewelry box. He is well aware that Sylvain has a propensity for being insincere at times, but this laugh sounds different from his forced chuckles. He desperately hopes that it is at least, and that he is not making it up. 

“I do not see why my choice of clothing is so funny to you” he huffs as they walk through the marketplace. 

“It’s just-” Sylvain wheezes, cutting off his airy laughter “when I said that you should wear something nicer, I didn’t mean your formal wear!” 

Airy, yes. That is an adequate descriptor. It settles on his tongue like spun sugar, cloyingly sweet and featherlight. Or at least he imagines that it is sweet. Sugar could be unbearably sour for all he knows. “I do not know what else you could have been referring to when you suggested I change.” 

He grins, calling attention to that despicable inkblot yet again. “I meant something that isn’t your uniform or your nightwear. People will think we’re on a date or something.” 

And how terrible that would be, for people to suspect that the Crown Prince was caught in the icy teeth of the local philanderer. A small hair at the back of his neck says otherwise, finds the idea almost… nice? 

He plucks it off immediately and lets it flutter to the ground. 

“I can change if you wish.” he says as he tugs at the hem of his sleeve. 

Sylvain chuckles. “You don’t have to go that far. I just think it’s funny.” 

“So you’ve said” he mutters as a flush rises to his cheeks, unbidden. 

The rest of the walk to town is filled with Sylvains comfortable idle chatter regarding topics ranging from that morning's breakfast, to the girl he was chasing after to surprisingly, the painting he purchased earlier that week. He flutters his hands around as he describes the picture, long fingers swirling in the air like brushstrokes as he speaks with an expression more animated than Dimitri had seen in quite some time. 

“-the style is the really incredible thing, ‘cause from a distance it looks like a really realistic meadow, but when you look close you can see that it’s a bunch of tiny blots in all sorts of colours.” 

Dimitri smiles. “I did not know that you liked art this much.” 

It’s Sylvain’s turn to flush, the red dusting making his freckles stand out even more. It’s awfully charming, he thinks. “Yeah, I do.” he says as he scratches the back of his neck. “I mostly just like looking at it. I’ve tried to draw a couple times, but I’m not very good.” 

“I am sure that if you keep trying you will get better. It is good to have a hobby.”

“Aside from skirtchasing, you mean?”

Dimitri coughs. “Well, yes. But for the record, you were the one who said that.” 

“Sure, sure.” he chuckles. “What about you, Your Highness. Do you have any hobbies?” 

Suddenly, DImitri is extremely self-conscious. How very like Sylvain to corner him like this, between a rock and a hard place that looks suspiciously like a bag of sewing supplies. “If you must know, Mercedes has encouraged me to pick up embroidery.” 

That earns another full-bodied laugh from Sylvain that causes passer-bys to look. Dimitri stares as he regains himself, and admires the way his eyelashes kiss the top of his cheek as he scrunches his eyes shut with mirth. Many have spoken well of Sylvain’s features, the amount of admirers he attracts a testament to this, but only now is Dimitri truly appreciating his looks. 

Strange, how that works. Maybe it is because of all Sylvain’s recent changes that he is now bound to notice? 

“Oh, hey” Sylvain says as he regains himself. “We’re here.” 

Dimitri tries and fails to restrain a grimace as he takes in their destination, a… quaint tavern sandwiched between a tailor’s shop and a barber. He watches in distress as two burly farmers lurch from the entrance, belting out a crude song in tandem as they stumble over the uneven cobblestone. 

“You did not mention that we would be visiting a tavern this evening.” 

Sylvain gives a cocky smile as he notices Dimitri’s expression. “What, not good enough for Your Highness?”

“I did not say that…” 

“I’m kidding” he says “but seriously, I know this place may look shitty but they have the best fucking chicken I’ve ever had, I swear. And the beer’s almost half-decent too.” he adds as an afterthought. He grabs Dimitri’s sleeve almost delicately, taking odd care not to touch his actual arm. “C’mon.”

He finds himself seated in the dark corner of the hazy room, the evening light filtering through one of two dingy windows and casting itself on the dull wood floor. The room is almost oppressively loud with the amount of chattering patrons and he barely hears Sylvain say that he is going up to the bar to get drinks. It is not his choice of establishment to say the least, but Sylvain enjoys it so he will give it the benefit of the doubt. 

For the time being. 

Sylvain saves him from twiddling his thumbs in the corner soon enough with two overly large tankards of ale that spill over the edges as he puts them down. He digs in eagerly to his, Dimitri furrows his brow as he stares into the frothy depths. 

“I did not realize we would be drinking.” 

Sylvain coughs as he puts his mug down. “I wasn’t gonna take you to a tavern so you could order a glass of milk.” 

Dimitri sighs as he picks up the tankard, foam jiggling ominously in the tavern’s dim light. It would be rude of him to not partake in the drink that Sylvain had bought him, so he hesitantly takes a sip. 

“This is ale.” he says, because he does not know what else to say about it. He takes another deep sip and comes up with foam on his nose. 

Sylvain stares bemusedly as he wipes his face. “You aren’t wrong.”

Ah, yes. Sylvain, like most, is unaware of his condition. It is odd, that something could be so commonplace for him but completely unbeknownst to others. A sobering thought, for sure. 

He takes another swig. 

About a quarter of the way through his tankard he begins to feel quite warm, a roaring hearth in the depths of the Castle to toast his hands after a long day of outdoor training. It is a wonderfully soft feeling, and he thinks he could fall asleep right then. Halfway through, he finds himself speaking of things he has never spoken of to a single soul, Sylvain the centre of his universe at the moment, a tether tying him down to earth. 

“And I just think… I am just not fond of cats?” he says as he stares solemnly at the table. “I find their flexibility almost grotesque, to be honest.” 

Sylvain looks like he is about to start hyperventilating. “Really now? Don’t let Ashe hear that.”

Dimitri puts his head in his hands. “Oh Goddess, I cannot. I have no doubt he would flay me.” 

Their food comes when he is left sucking at the dregs of his ale, bustled in by the barkeep who seems to go out of his way to roughly jostle Sylvain’s shoulder. He merely looks annoyed but Dimitri, well and thoroughly drunk at this point, cannot abide rudeness. 

“Do you have some sort of… quarrel with that man?” he says in a tone that makes Sylvain, who is still unfairly lucid, stare incredulously . 

“That guy? Nah. Some people just don’t take too kindly to people like… well,” he gestures to himself in a vague motion “y'know?” 

He stares, eyes wide. “No. I do not.” 

Sylvain smiles, and even in his intoxicated state Dimitri can tell that it is far more strained than usual. “People aren’t as open minded as you’d like to think, Your Highness.” 

‘How terrible, when I am king I will do all in my power to rectify this’ Dimitri would like to say, but instead he just sort of groans, which makes Sylvain raise an eyebrow, which makes Dimitri jealous and sad because he cannot do that.

He slams his palms on the table as he stands abruptly, the plates of chicken jumping a full inch in the air. “I will not-” he burps “allow him to insult you like this.” 

“Jeez, Your Highness” Sylvain snickers behind his palm “fighting for my honour? How very knightley.”

Dimitri cracks his knuckles, or at least tries. He only manages to crack two. Sylvain’s eyes widen in horror.

“Woah, hey, hey, hey, no fighting, okay? On the one hand this is really funny, but I can’t let you beat up a guy in the middle of a tavern.” 

He stares down at Sylvain with the full righteous fury of the Blaiddyd bloodline. “You would allow him to slight you like this?” 

Sylvain laughs nervously. “This is hardly the worst thing that’s been done to me.”

That sucks the vim right out of Dimitri and in a wave of dizziness he plops forward on the table, feebly grasping at Sylvain’s hand with wide eyes. “Who else has hurt you?”

Sylvain’s knuckles go white in his grip. “I thought you were just a little tipsy but you are completely shitfaced. We have to get the fuck out of here.” He wiggles a little and Dimitri loosens his hand. 

“But-” he protests as Sylvain ushers him out of his chair. 

“Oh! You’re right” Sylvain says as he grabs a chicken leg and the rest of his beer. “Now we can go.” 

The walk home is… he cannot for the life of him remember the walk back, save for when he vomited into a hedge, Sylvain stroking his back and saying something along the lines of “You only had half a beer! How did this happen?” Truly a night to remember, he thinks grimly as he wakes with a pounding headache. The memory of his touch traces down his spine like the wisps of a half-forgotten song, his laugh, his eyes, the way the sun caught in the swoop of his hair. He thinks of Sylvain and he wants to- wants to-

There’s a glass of water on his bedside table which he drinks gratefully, only spilling half of it down his shirt. A slip of paper flutters down to the floor and he slowly falls out of bed to reach it. The writing is slanted with a slight flourish to the ‘L’s’ and ‘J’ and it is signed clearly, reading; 

_ Get well soon!  _

_ -SJG  _

Dimitri smiles, some strange warmth burning where his fingers touch the note. It spreads to his stomach, and he rolls over to throw up. 

* * *

They murmur again and tug at his sheets, his father shaking his shoulder like he would shake his when he had a nightmare as a child,  _ father, please wake up, I can’t sleep, father, please wake up, please save me from this hell, please PLEASE PLEASE _

Glenn likes to stand over him, a bleeding sentinel shushing him as he cries out, his young face a blank cracked mask dripping down onto the sheets and tangling in his arms. He remembers his cries again, before he was shred limb from limb and paraded around on pikes, legs and arms jumping in the flames as they were swung like some sick banner in the wind. 

“Please” he chokes, held to his bed “I swear I-”  _ don’t look at me like that why are you looking at me like that  _ “you will have your blood, please just-” 

The room glares as his father encircles him in his arms, rotting flesh spilling down and staining his nightshirt as he sobs and gags in his grip. 

“My son” he says.

One day he will forget the sound of his voice and the memories will be nothing but a distortion. One day he will forget the colour of his hair. The shape of his laugh. His ghosts are just some sort of terrible reflection in a mirror, a torch to carry that will burn him alive. They are precious, they are a nightmare. 

“Your mother is burning.” Yes, of course. She is not here, but he can hear her screams all the same, ringing in his ears as he bites his lip to muffle his sobs. 

A tear drips on his bed. He pulls on to it, follows its path. Bed. His father’s voice. Sheets. Glenn’s dull eyes. Floor. Yelling. Carpet. Yelling. His body, his hands, his legs, his hair. Still yelling.

He trips out into the hallway, pulled by a length of twine to the source of the noise that seeps through the walls. The door on his right slams open with the sound of a backfired spell and an angry young woman with straw hair storms out. 

Real, he thinks dimly as he leans against the wall. All real. He does not care for the source of the yelling.  _ Happened, _ says the open door.  _ It happened, happened, ha- _

“Dimitri!” Sylvain says from the open door, somewhat strained if he can tell at all. “Shit, did that wake you up? Sorry.” 

His hair glows like a warning in the light of the hall, so he latches on to that, a point on a spinning top to chain himself to. 

“What… What happened?” he chews the words like sand over his tongue. “You did not hurt that girl on purpose, I hope.” That girl, with the straw hair. Somehow when his thoughts turn to her he feels a roiling in his gut, a kettle about to spill over onto the flame. He knows hate well, and it is not that. 

“Ha! You really have no faith in me at all, asking questions like that” he smiles, an angry gash across his face. “Nah, things were getting serious and then we got into a bit of an argument so she flipped.” He sighs wistfully, and if Dimitri could trust his eyes at all (which frankly, he cannot) he would say he almost looks relieved. “Too bad too. I really was in love with her.” 

“I do not think you mean that” he finds himself saying. Perhaps he could have had a little more decorum, but the bitter feeling pouring out from his teeth has robbed him of any patience. 

Sylvain’s smile is a thin blade, the venom coating a flashy ornamental rapier. He jabs it at Dimitri across the hall as he leans against his door frame. One side crooks up before the other, he notices. 

“No offense, Your Highness, but you really are shit at reading people.” 

There’s a spider on the wall that follows the knots and whorls in the wood, crawling in an alien way through trenches. “But enough about me” he continues before Dimitri manages to retort. “Not to hound you too much, but you aren’t looking too hot either.” 

“I-” Straw hair. Straw hair. He could fit himself easily into her place, he thinks. But her eyes were grey. “Had another nightmare. In truth, it was your argument that pulled me out of it.” 

Sylvain’s face fits itself into a softer mould, almost looking sympathetic, if Dimitri could ever call him that. A sword in its scabbard, hooked at the waist. “Shit, okay.” he says and steps into the hall. “C’mon, let's get you to your room.”

“I do not think I can go back to sleep” he protests as he is gently ushered back into his room. 

“I figured, but you look dead on your feet. I’d rather you sit down instead of just standing in the hall.” 

_ dead on your feet _ Glenn waves in his vision. “I… very well.” 

In the room Sylvain pulls his chair out and sits on it backwards. “I can make you some tea, if you want” he says, truly gentle for the first time in recent memory. 

“I would not want you to go to all that trouble for me.” 

Sylvain’s eyebrows wrinkle, almost as if he was in pain. “It’ll be really easy for me. Dedue had the great idea of putting tea leaves into these little cloth bags if anyone wanted tea quick. ‘Sides” he grins “I’ll have no trouble boiling water” he says as he lifts his hand, a tiny red flame dancing on his fingertips. 

_ you’ll save me, right? you'll save your poor mother from this hell, right?  _

_ damn you dimitri, damn you, WE SHOULD HAVE DIED TOGETHER DIMITRI, WE- _

He flinches back violently, colliding with the wall against the bed as he clutches his head in his hands, ears blocked by his palms. Sylvain immediately puts out the flame, a horrified expression on his face. 

“Hey, hey, I’m sorry” he says, holding up his hands like Dimitri is some wild animal that needs to be calmed down lest it bite. “That was… really stupid of me, wasn’t it?” he chuckles, a tinge of self-depreciation falling off the tip of his tongue. “I won’t do it again, I swear.” 

“It… It is fine” he says after a while. It would be unfair of him to hate Sylvain for that. He does his best to quash down any bitterness under his feet like dead leaves in the autumn. Unfair, unfair, like it is for him to hate that girl. 

It is not hate, he reminds himself. He knows hate, knows the taste of it under his tongue until it blocks out everything else. 

“I…” Sylvain sighs, looking wearier than he has in ages, all at once less like a smiling doll and more of something almost human. “I get it. Sometimes there are just things that make it go off, you know?” he mimes an explosion by his head. “You’re doing fine and then some stupidly specific thing happens…” he grimaces. 

“You sound like you are speaking from experience.”

Sylvain’s face twists, like there is some monumental conflict happening behind his teeth. He exhales deeply and puts on a strained smirk. “I guess I am. Could be the fabric of someone’s dress, or the ribbon ‘round a cat’s neck that’s the same colour as…” he trails off, looking for all the world like he’s going to be sick. “You know, I actually really hate snow.” 

Dimitri blinks. “That is a surprise.” 

He chuckles softly. “‘Cause of where I’m from, right? Yeah, it’s a real nightmare in the winter.” He sags against the chair and stifles a yawn. “When I was about eleven or so, I got lost on the mountainside in the middle of winter. Won’t say how or why, but I was stuck out there for a couple of days just trying to find any way back home.” His smile is oddly cheery, but his eyes are six feet under. “I was pretty much dead by the time a wandering soldier found me. Anyways, afterwards I couldn’t even look out the window or else I’d start shaking in my boots. Took a long-ass time before I got over it.” 

Dimitri stares with wide eyes. “I had no idea that this happened” 

And for some odd reason Sylvain smiles, really truly smiles. “Good” he says as he nods. “That’s good.” 

“I am not... glad, per se, but comforted moreso, that someone understands what that is like” he smiles bitterly, twisting his hands together like a knot. “I cannot find myself comfortable around fire on the best of days, and some certain smells or sensations against my skin… Well, I would rather not speak of it.” 

Sylvain nods. “Yeah, of course. I kinda dumped a lot of shit on you, didn’t I?” he chuckles “stupid me, always making everything about myself.” 

“There is no need to apologize. Your words have truly helped a great deal.”

Sylvain’s smile grows soft. “Really? That’s great. I was worried I was just being a bother.”

“You are never a bother, Sylvain. I will always welcome your company.” 

The straw-haired girl comes back to mind. The bitterness settles strong on his tongue. 

Sylvain flushes and Dimitri stares at the dusting of red across the bridge of his nose, a dull rosy glow on his skin that lends an ethereal quality to his figure. He would not look out of place in a painting, he thinks, if there were ever any artist that would be skilled enough to translate this moment to paper. 

The moment is broken tragically as Dimitri yawns deeply, blinking away the tears in his eyes as he stretches. 

“Forgive me.” he says. “Suddenly I am… really very tired.”

Sylvain gets up from his chair. “Yeah, of course. I’ll let you get to bed now.” He tucks the chair in nicely, flush against the desk instead of leaving it where it stood. It is… rather cute, Dimitri thinks as he lays down. Not what he expected from Sylvain. 

He looks back as he leaves. “Wake me up if you need someone again, okay? I’ll always be here.”

He yawns again. How unbecoming. “If you insist.”

Sylvain smiles back, eyes crinkling at the edges softly. “And I do. Good night, Dimitri.” 

“Good night, Sylvain.” 

He begins to drift off as soon as his head hits the pillow, and it’s only far later when he realizes that Sylvain actually said his name. 

* * *

It’s later, and his eyes flutter open. The taste of hate is bitter on his tongue, and he knows it well. The straw haired girl is sour, the way he paints the taste of lemons and grapefruit in his mind. Sour, green, he’s jealous and it pours from his teeth. 

He’s in her shoes and Sylvain is taking him back to his room, and he gets to touch him and hold him and kiss him in all the ways he knows how. It’s so dark he can’t see his hand in front of his face when he waves it and he  _ wants _ so bad to be that girl.

It’s love, he realizes. He remembers love like a lullaby that he can only hum, that springs into mind after a note played on a lute before it breaks off into unfamiliar lyrics. He carries his body around like a corpse being hoisted on its shield and he loves him, and he wants to be the one to cradle his body in his arms instead.

Love is syrup bleeding red from his lips, but that does not make it sweet. It does not purify his mouth and cleanse his hands as he wipes his face. Love clings and sticks and looks like blood, and it does not belong to creatures like him.

* * *

Trying to capture Sylvain, he thinks, is like trying to pin down a living butterfly to a corkboard. For all his seemingly careless personality he can be horribly effusive at all the right times, and the pin misses its target as he flutters away. He is overwhelmingly close and frustratingly distant at the same time, toeing at everyones boundaries carefully while never truly coming in contact, artfully twisting the conversation away from himself every time like a complicated waltz. It is terribly frustrating, Dimitri thinks as he is left tugging desperately at his coattails for a single touch. 

And Dimitri is not subtle, he is well aware. After his midnight revelation gifted by a chorus of foul-mouthed redhead saints he’s become more clumsy than a cavalier in a potters studio, Sylvain a precious decorated vase falling from the top level of a shelf. Like always when he tries to catch something, he misjudges every possible thing that could be misjudged in that moment and ends up punting it across the room. 

Case and point: A week later Sylvain barges into his room after knocking twice and kisses him full on the lips. 

He’s- he’s good at this, Dimitri thinks distantly. Is kissing a skill to be learned? If so, Dimitri does not think he is doing very well. 

Wait, of course he’s good at this. Sylvain is not taking countless men and women back to his room to sit and stare. Should Dimitri close his eyes? Sylvain’s are wide open, tantalizing amber burning two holes in his skull as he grazes his bottom lip with his teeth before pulling away. 

Dimitri is breathless, panting like he had been sprinting for miles through shin-deep snow. Sylvain, on the contrary, is perfectly still, save for a devilish smirk pulling at his lips as he swings Dimitri around and falls on his bed. Dimitri is forced to bend down, Sylvain’s hands poised at the back of his neck. He does not know where to put his hands so he settles for planting them on the bed, caging in Sylvain’s slim waist. 

“You’re new to this, aren’t you?” he says, peering up through his eyelashes in a way that makes Dimitri go completely red. He laughs softly at that, the smirk never leaving his face.

“I- uhm-”

“Shh” he whispers, releasing his grip on Dimitri’s neck to place a thin finger against his lips. “Go on, lead the way. I’m all yours.” 

There’s something about the way Sylvain looks at him, filtered through the haze of his eyelashes and the tantalizing way he bites the pout of his bottom lip that feels… off. It is hard to define, as Dimitri tentatively puts one hand on Sylvain’s torso, feeling the hard material of the corset hidden beneath his shirt, it flickers. 

“You do want this, right?” he asks, that strange something hidden beneath the paper-thin layer of his flirty tone. 

_ You’re shit at reading people, _ he says,  _ quit overthinking _ . 

Dimitri nods fervently, bangs flopping as he suddenly finds himself at a loss for words. Sylvain grins at that, a lopsided thing that makes his eyes go wide.

“I figured,” he says. “You aren’t exactly subtle either” like he’s reading his mind. 

And- well, he cannot deny that the sight of  _ Sylvain _ spread out underneath him on his bed is not having its effects on him, said effects currently being muffled by his trousers. It is what he wanted, to have Sylvain in his arms and hold him and make him feel good. He’s pulled down again, and this time he closes his eyes and relishes in the feeling of his mouth against Sylvain’s, a soft glide from the balm coating his lips. 

His eyes flutter open as Sylvain’s fingers deftly undo the buttons of his shirt and he meets Sylvain’s gaze, wide open and- and-  _ again _ , that one unreadable emotion lurking under the cover of startling amber. Sylvain wriggles a bit as he shucks off his own shirt, leaving his top half covered only by a plain corset with lacing that, if Dimitri is to be frank, vexes him greatly. 

He swallows the lump in his throat. “Is this okay with you?”

It is not like he has ever discussed… this with Sylvain. He does seem to be fairly confident, considering the way he swaggers around, and is rather vocal about the fact that he tends to sleep around quite a bit but-

Dimitri is very out of his depth in every single way in this situation, and he is just going to have to live with that. 

Sylvain chuckles in a way that goes straight to Dimitri’s trousers. “You can do whatever you want” he says before kissing him again, and he can imagine that emotion coating his tongue. 

_ You’re shit at reading people,  _ again, but he cannot deny that there is something odd with Sylvain, the way he curls in slightly against his touch, the way his smile wears at the edges. 

_ You can do whatever you want _ , but as far as Dimitri knows about these sorts of relations, it is about give and take on both ends, ideally. He would very much like for this to be ‘ideal’. 

_ Quit overthinking _ , but it tastes like blood on his lips.

“Are you-” he starts awkwardly, fumbling his tongue in his mouth “completely sure about this?” 

His smile is a terrible thing, unfurling like dead leaves in the fall. It is nothing like the soft one he received the other night, the joking smirk at the tavern. It is the curl of a beast's lips over its teeth, a fox caught in a trap chewing off its own leg.

“‘Course I am. I’m here, aren’t I?”

_ Don’t read me,  _ he says, but Dimitri goes in against his better judgement. 

“You just do not seem to be very happy about this.” 

Sylvain pouts a little, and it would have almost been endearing in any other circumstance. “What makes you say that?” 

_ Stop get out stop stop STOP- _

“You are acting odd”

“Yeah, well, I thought this was a little odd for  _ you _ . Like, isn’t Blaiddyd supposed to be better than Gautier?” he laughs lowly “but there have been worse people with lower standards. And you’re not too bad looking, so that’s a plus.” 

Dimitri’s hand shifts over Sylvain’s stomach as he furrows his brow in confusion. “What in the Goddess’ name are you talking about?” 

He curls in further at that, a pillbug pulled up from the dirt and laid helplessly on its side. “I don’t know what you’d need a child in another noble family for, but hey, get your fingers in as many pies as you can, right?” he pauses and looks off to the side. “I was gonna make an innuendo there but I’m honestly not sure if you’d get it or not.” 

Is he talking about- Noble prestige? “I do not know why you are acting like this” he says, anger bleeding in through the cracks of his words. 

“Lying doesn’t suit you, Your Highness.” He’s scared now, his fear barely concealed as he shifts against the wall like a hound cowering in the corner bracing itself to be beaten. 

He stands up abruptly, pulling his hand back as he towers over Sylvain on the bed. “I am not lying to you! Please just explain what I did wrong!” He begins pacing, threading his hands through hair as he walks. “Do you believe I want to- be with you because of your family name? Your Crest?” 

He must have hit the target in his blind flailing, as Sylvain’s expression changes from a seductive mask to an ugly snarl, the darkness in his eyes looking eerily familiar. “Why else?” he says with a hysterical edge to his voice.

“Because I love you!” he yells “is that not enough?” 

He might as well have punched Sylvain in the gut with the way his eyes go wide, a furious glare reflecting Dimitri’s face in the hazel depths. His smile returns, jagged and red like a piece of broken glass across his lips. “You have no idea what you’re talking about” he says, every word suffused with venom. “You’re awfully naĨve for a prince.” 

“You are making no sense!” 

“I mean,” he continues “the royal family has kinda gone out the window. Following in the Grand Dukes footsteps now, are we?” 

He’s dumped a bucket of ice water on him, locked up his limbs as fury drags at every line of his body. “Watch your tongue” he growls, a guttural noise in the back of his throat that catches like a chunk of gravel. 

But that only goads him on, even as a drop of sweat slides down the side of his face and caresses the edge of his awful grin. “I’m honestly kind of proud, trashing your family name like this. Who knew you had it in you?” 

“Get. Out” 

Something splinters in his grip, digs itself into his palm and makes him bleed all over his rug as he snarls, feeling nothing but fully steeped fury, red hot anger that clings to his eyes. Sylvain slinks from the bed, his eyes on Dimitri as he shuffles to the door with a scared sense of urgency. 

“Felix was right about you” is the last thing he says before he slams the door, the sound shooting deep into his core as he stands alone, the splintered back of his chair lodged in his hand. 

* * *

He does not see Sylvain often after that. If he thought the man effusive before, then now he is practically intangible, another fluttering shadow left to lurk at the edge of his vision. He sees him with Felix, draping himself over him without ever actually touching him. He sees him in conversation with Mercedes, a soft expression cloaked over his face that had only been directed at him once before. He notices so many little things about him that are so terribly distant now that he will never again be on the receiving end of them. 

And he is angry, for lack of a better definition for the mixed feelings their last encounter left him with. Sylvain had cut so deeply into the rawest parts of his skin with such unfiltered poison, a ragged hole left in his cheek after sucking on a lemon that bleeds when he prods it with his tongue. How Sylvain knew exactly where the still bleeding wounds lay was shocking in and of itself, considering that his childhood friend had never before shown a propensity for being emotionally intelligent. The fact that he contained such venom when for all his life Dimitri had only known the man to be kind, at least when his friends were concerned, was a rather rude awakening as well. 

How terrible, for the Crown Prince to become just another withered violet in Sylvain’s wake. He was never really made for love. 

But the world does not allow him the luxury of moping over a broken heart like some young maiden forbidden from seeing the stable boy, with Ethereal Moon and all events within fast approaching. He is relieved, albeit somewhat confused, to hear that the professor had picked Marianne to represent the house in the White Heron Cup, who had been recruited rather recently. Him, twirling about in those terribly revealing costumes? Well… the less said the better. 

(And of course- of  _ course _ his treacherous mind jumps to imagining Sylvain in the dancer regalia, his slim waist cinched in with that gaudy belt, the way his strong legs would look surrounded by fluttering fabric-

A crush is hard to shake, it seems)

Sooner than he can believe, the ball descends upon him and he is swept up in dance after dance, with Edelgard, Dedue, a lively jig with Claude, twirling around with Annette until he cannot walk straight. He catches a red smear in his eye as he spins, a bright mark of shame against his vision as Sylvain waltzes with some unfortunate girl, cradling her heart in his hand only to smash it against the wall, undoubting. 

His next dance is with Mercedes, her fluffy hair glowing softly in the fluttering light of the chandeliers above. He thinks that he could consider Mercedes a dear friend, despite only knowing her for a few months. It seems that she has this sort of effect on everyone, even coaxing a soft smile out of Dedue with her presence. His mind goes back to Sylvain, the gentle look he had when he talked with her, and his heart aches something terrible for a moment.

“Are you alright?” Mercedes asks in that sweet tone of hers, big eyes filled with concern. “You look sad all of a sudden.” 

“I am fine. Thank you for your concern, though.” The thing about Mercedes, despite her tendency to be rather airheaded, is that she has an uncanny knack for reading people. Dimitri believes he has become quite skilled at projecting a facade over himself, a cloak to hide the rotting limbs, but Mercedes has been able to see past that almost every time. 

Not far enough to see the teeth and blood and bones, the promises of vengeance, destruction. No, not that, but she peers deep enough past the glare of the sun on the water to see the creatures swimming within.

“You and Sylvain haven’t been speaking, I hear” she says like she just pulled it out of the air instead of straight from his own mind. 

“Yes, we… had a nasty argument about a month ago, and have not come to terms since.” He wonders what Mercedes would have seen in Sylvain that night. He has spent countless hours going over their argument and has come up with fistfuls of nothing but pure confusion. The idea that he would only want Sylvain for his Crest is absurd, frankly. There are arranged marriages revolving around the idea, of course, but to court someone of his own free will based on that one thing? 

Mercedes’ eyebrows furrow as they spin around. “You’re thinking about it again, aren’t you? I’m terribly sorry for bringing it up.” 

“It is no fault of yours.” His hand ghosts over her hip, soft and full. Sylvain’s was the opposite, thin and narrow, the stiff edge of the boning hidden beneath his shirt. “The contents of the argument are simply… vexing me, to be honest.” 

“Do you want to talk about it? I’m not sure how much I’d help, but I’d be happy to listen.” 

His face flushes as he thinks of the circumstances that led to the fight, Sylvain’s lips, his clever fingers at the throat of his shirt, the suffocation of his trousers. Ah, well. Mercedes does not need the exact details. 

“We had a disagreement about the nature of our relationship, so to speak. He seemed adamant that I was his… friend simply for his family name. I, of course, denied that, but he would not listen no matter what I said.” He looks down at their feet, his large metal-clad boots precariously close to Mercedes’ smaller ones, clothed in simple flats a pale shade of blue. “He said some rather nasty things and I lost my temper at him. I believe I frightened him quite a bit” 

Mercedes purses her lips. “That’s a difficult situation, for sure. Do you know why he’d be so fixated on family names?”

The colours whirl as they continue their dance, Dimitri’s eyebrows furrowing as he thinks. “His family, the Gautier’s, have always placed a rather large amount of significance on Crests due to their position at the border. Sylvain has never mentioned his opinion on it until rather recently, though.” 

Mercedes’ eyes widen, a realization glimmering in the depths of pale blue. “Perhaps it’s because of his brother? I believe that situation had something to do with the family title.” 

The image of Sylvain’s brother had stuck with him, a dark blot in the back of his mind. Will he too become a beast like that? Will everyone scream and gape as he is consumed by whatever horrible substance lurked beneath his skin? 

And if it had stuck with Dimitri, who did not know that Miklan even existed until recently, then what did that bode for Sylvain who had known the man his whole life? 

_ Me? Nah, I don’t have a lot going on up here. _

“I had not considered that possibility. You really are clever Mercedes.” 

Her giggle sounds out like a bell. “Thank you, but I’m really not. I was so focused on doing my hair before the ball that I walked out of my room without my dress! I got so many strange looks…” 

Mercedes also has no shame, it seems. 

“But…” she says as her laughter dies down. “It seems like you miss him.”

Dimitri sighs. “I do, if I am being honest. We had been spending more time together as of late, and now that he is gone I find myself missing his company terribly.” 

She cocks her head thoughtfully. “It isn’t too late to try and make amends. I would hate for the school year to end without you two ever becoming friends again.” 

His feet are so close to crushing hers. So close to creating two craters in the middle of the reception hall. Maybe he should lock himself up in midair so he can never touch a single thing again. “I do not think he would wait to hear me out.”

“Oh, I wouldn't say that.” Her eyes twinkle, a smile splayed against her soft cheeks that says she knows far more than she is letting on. “I think he’s missed you too.”

“You truly think so?” There’s something awful that tastes a bit like hope at the back of his throat. He chokes it down. 

“You’ll never know if you don’t talk to him.” she giggles again as their twirling slows, the song finally coming to the end. “And a little birdie told me he was at the Goddess tower.” 

What a terribly loaded location, Sylvain there to head a queue of lovelorn girls no doubt. But the soft light in Mercedes’ eye and the crinkling of her cheeks tells him to break away from her, and he ends their dance with a bow. 

“I truly cannot thank you enough, Mercedes.” 

She dips into a silly little curtsy as she giggles. “It’s nothing. But if you insist on thanking me, the baker at the marketplace is selling the most delicious religieuses…”

He shuffles backwards as he bows again. “Of course! I will bring you a wide variety, later of course, when I-”

“I was kidding! Now go!” she says, before Annette swoops in and grabs her by the elbow to raid the dessert buffet.

He stumbles out of the hall with the dance on his heels, the moon shining overhead a great white gash in the ink black sky. The tower stands alone like some foreboding ancient sentinel only illuminated in the pale wash of the stars, tendrils of ivy barely clinging in the chilly night breeze. He marches forward to see his- what? Friend? Enemy? Lover? If Sylvain could be called any of those things, or perhaps he is all at once. Dimitri marches forward to find out.

Sylvain cuts a slim figure against the spattering of stars, the black silhouette of a knife standing alone at the edge between ground and sky. His head jerks as soon as Dimitri sets foot in the tower, the clanking of his heavy boots shattering any illusion of subtlety he thought he possessed. He looks wary, a cornered deer staring at the arrow soon to be lodged in its forehead. Dimitri’s palm bears a small scar from the wood that had shattered in his grip. 

‘Your Highness,' he says, voice strangely flat. It is terrible how badly Dimitri longs for him to call him by his name, those three rarely-spoken syllables carressed by his silver tongue. “I’ll leave.”

It is terrible how badly Dimitri has it for Sylvain, but he will not linger on that. 

Sylvain brushes to the exit, but stops as Dimitri holds up his hand. He does not miss how he flinches, and it settles like glass in his throat.

“Sylvain, wait” he says, his tone coming out far more even than he expected. His voice does not waver often, but he supposes that for this situation an exception could be made. 

“What is it?” The glare Sylvain shoots at him is chilling, a look he never thought his childhood friend to ever be able to muster. All of this is so- so- unprecedented. The fact that he is able to love someone at all is a shock in and of itself. 

“I wanted to apologize for that night.”

His eyes widen, just a fraction, as he turns to face Dimitri. “What do you mean?”

“I clearly upset you, and frightened you as well. My actions were reprehensible that night, and so I am here to say I am sorry.” 

“So formal…” he shakes his head. “You don’t have to apologize for that. I was the one who said all that shitty stuff about your family.”    
  
A bat squeaks as it flies past. Somewhere, a cricket chirps. It all means nothing to the blood in his ears. “Well, I won't deny that. I do not think I can forgive you for your words, but I still wanted to apologize for the faults on my end.” 

A smirk appears on Sylvain’s face, sardonic and plastered, but miles away from the uncharacteristic indifference he had been receiving. “You really are hell-bent on showing me up, eh?” he chuckles “I’m glad you won’t forgive me. I’m self-aware enough to know I don’t deserve it.“

Dimitri has no idea how to reply to that, so he keeps quiet. Sylvain had always been good at filling the silence.

“I’m sorry too, though. I got scared and said a lot of things I didn’t even mean.”

It’s cold enough in the Ethereal Moon that his breath comes out as white puffs, lending a strange tension to the atmosphere that he does not like. “Are you scared of me?”

His laugh comes out as a great cloud, the sound strained and a touch hysterical like an untuned lute. “I mean, yeah, a little bit. You’ve got super strength and no offense, but you’re fucking scary when you lose your temper.” 

“I see…” It is good to know that Sylvain is afraid of him, a sharp spear lodged in his back with a satisfying bite of pain. He has every right to be frightened, and when Dimitri sheds his skin and shows the world his true nature maybe that fear will keep him safe. 

“But I really don’t think you’re an animal or whatever, like Felix says. That guy can be full of shit sometimes, you know?” 

Dimitri chuckles softly. “It would not do well for you if he were to hear that.” Felix is right, of course, but he will not say that. There are many things he will not address tonight, his dramatic declaration of love hanging over the both of them like a pair of nooses at the gallows. He could bring it up, but the feral glare he received as soon as the word slipped out had him dead in his tracks. He would rather not be on the end of that look again, if he can help it. 

“Good thing we’re alone, huh?” 

“Oh, yes. You must have been waiting for someone. I apologize for taking up your time.” 

It’s Sylvain’s turn to pull him back, a small smile playing at his lips. “It’s fine. I wasn’t expecting anyone.” 

Dimitri stares. “Then why are you here?” 

The smile widens, and for a moment it outshines the moon itself. “Stargazing. C’mon.” he jerks his head to the balcony. “I’ll show you.”

Sylvain’s hands gesture wildly as he points out the constellations above, the net of stars shining more bright and clear than Dimitri had seen in a long time, but he does not truly look at them. His attention is fully captured by Sylvain’s face, expression like a firefly being let out of a jar and sailing off towards the heavens. He is truly… truly beautiful like this, his hair reflecting a crisp white. He thinks that he could sit and stare forever, if the night would allow him such luxuries. 

He’s broken off by a pair of students barging in and he laughs, Dimitri joining in a few seconds later. It’s a soft sound, far different than his usual boisterous chuckle, or the strained twang of half an hour ago. Sylvain grabs his hand and they run outside all the way to the lawn outside the officers academy, and there they flop down on the soft grass and stare up at the sky for the rest of the night.


	2. small steps against inertia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dimitri disappears, and Sylvain is forced to confront his feelings regarding him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh thank god I finally get to write sylvain again, the only character who I think I can do an okay job with. 
> 
> cw for some internalized transphobia, including sylvain casually misgendering himself. also for referenced child abuse/csa, really vague references to suicide, casual self loathing, uncomfortable sex and a ton of swearing. just little sylvain things
> 
> again, im transgender so this is all from my perspective but please let me know if anything really upsets you and I'll fix it!

  
  


Sylvain hears of Dimitri’s death exactly one week after the fact, when messengers bearing livery of indigo and golden trim burst through the gates of Castle Gautier with the breath of hell on their heels. He had arrived about half a month prior to find his father hunched over towering stacks of reports and maps, correspondence from all corners of Faerghus flooding into the martial backbone of the country. 

The news comes in like a punch to the jaw, an uppercut worthy of breaking through glass. He fell in through the lake once in the middle of winter, the frozen water eating through his skin and flesh and only stopping at the bone as he sunk down. Dimitri’s death hits twice as hard. 

The cold walls of the Castle narrow in overhead as the news trails after him. Dimitri, the kid with the big forehead and bigger eyes, the kid with the shitty half-assed declaration of love spilling out of his lips like sour wine. The kid with his head rolling down the chopping block. Were his eyes open? 

The guy that night lifts his head from between his legs and pins him down for a kiss. He swallows the urge to gag easily, his beard scratching like rusty nails against his face. He’d been going at it for what- ten minutes? He doesn’t know. Doesn’t really give a shit either. He doubts the guy gives a shit either, about anything about this situation. The thing about men, he’s learned, is that they’ll stick their dick in practically anything, so it doesn’t really matter if that night’s boytoy has a great pair of tits (if he does say so himself). 

Even Dimitri had been like that, just a little classier and a lot more pretentious about it, but as soon as they had their talk about nightmares he was following him around like a blue-eyed puppy, hearts gushing out of his floppy ears. He, to be frank, did not think that Dimitri had the capacity to even be a sexual being but like always, he was proven dead wrong. 

And now that little puppy’s head is impaled on a pike on the iron gates of Fhirdiad. And they had only just made up. 

He waits until they both finish before he gets the dude out of his bed with a swift kick to the ass. Despite him constantly bemoaning the fact that he can’t grow a decent beard, he really is not a fan of excessive body hair. By the Goddess, he’s allowed to have standards too. Just very specific ones that he will never be allowed to pursue. 

(He doesn’t think too hard about said standards, especially nowadays. They usually come in the form of big blue eyes, broad shoulders, and blonde hair except the blonde hair isn’t weird and floppy. Terrible, really.)

And maybe, he thinks as he lies on the cold sheets, it’s a good thing he’s dead. Dimitri wore suffering like an old cloak that was too big over his shoulders, worn with blood and guts and singed at the edges. He held himself like a wild animal on a leash, one inch from tearing everyone’s throat out with his fanged teeth. Maybe he was waiting for the day when he’d be put down. 

He’s finding so many things in common with him these days. Blood on the chopping block, blood on his wrists. One day he’ll die too. 

His father keeps him locked up in the Castle instead of sending him out to fight. Both the border and Southern Faerghus had been strained since the execution and subsequent installation of the Dukedom, but his father still refuses to let him out of his sight. The old man isn’t exactly spry anymore, but apparently his disgraced  _ daughter _ is still far too precious to go out and knock some heads even if he is more than capable of doing it.  _ Pop a kid out already, would you?  _ Is the loaded sentence behind everything he says.  _ If it has a Crest I’ll let you go outside.  _

He amuses himself during the day by reading in the library, tending to his horse, and firmly not thinking about Dimitri. He doesn’t train. The Lance of Ruin is back in his father’s grip, hanging behind him on the mantle in his study like some ugly centrepiece. Sometimes he thinks he sees his brother’s guts hanging from it but his father already thinks he’s a lunatic, so he doesn’t mention it. 

He spends his nights fucking because that’s all he’s really good for, eh boys? He finds that women tend to be a bit more picky about who they’re rolling around in bed with. Disappointed that he can’t stick a kid in them, no doubt. They’re all the same, all the people that ‘get lost’ and wander into his room at night, who eye him up like a nice rack of lamb. He’s tired. 

Relief comes in the form of a visit from Duke Fraldarius, a grumpy Felix in tow. His father locks him out of the study for their meeting so he presses his ear to the door and does his best to catch what they’re saying. Snatches leak through the slight crack between heavy oak panels,  _ His Highness- Body- Cornelia- Alive- _

And Sylvain can’t sew for shit, but he’s smart enough to stitch the pieces together into a ragged quilt that spells Dimitri’s survival, that promises a change in the tides of war. Later, Felix announces his hunt for the boar like he’s some sort of proud ghost with a bone hunting horn that will sweep through all the villages and capture anyone who looks at his party. Sylvain meant it when he said that Felix was full of shit sometimes, and he desperately hopes that he’s still in the right. 

He hopes that Dimitri is alive. He thinks that it might be better if he was dead. A kingdom with a living corpse on the throne will only wither and die in the end as well. 

* * *

His father lets him out to fight eight months later, after Lord Rodrigue finally manages to convince him that the Lance would do more good on the front lines than gathering dust in his study. The Margrave himself can’t leave because there has always been a Gautier at the border since they were put there in the first place, so he sends the only other person on earth who can wield the damn thing. Half a year spent staring through the bars of his frigid cage, his only visitors coming in to tear off chunks of his flesh. It should be liberating to stretch his legs, but he quickly finds that war is another prison in and of itself. 

And he knows war like breathing, learned the horrors of it before most children even knew the meaning of the word, but it’s one thing to be a wide-eyed child watching the carnage unfold and another being the source of the destruction itself. The Lance cuts through the men he’s sent to fight like paper, chews up the twisted beasts they send back and spits. He feels like Death riding in on their black horse, swinging their scythe and reaping the harvest in swathes. Ingrid takes pride in the people who fall to Lùin’s blade. He does not feel the same. 

And somewhere Dimitri is out there, causing far more damage than any Relic could with his bare hands. Tales arrive at the fireside, the messenger speaks in hushed tones with the light flickering off her face as she describes the piles of mangled corpses, the trail of destruction wreaking through the Dukedom. She makes her eyes at him later, leads him to his own tent like he’s gone blind in the past half hour. He thinks about Dimitri as her fingers dig between his thighs; bodies with their throats torn out, ribcages ripped open like the wings of a bird. He’ll never, ever say it to his face, because the kid kind of needs his ego smacked down a few pegs, but Felix was right. 

War is time-travel in the mundane sense. He falls back to Castle Gautier after a lengthy stint at the border only to check his calendar (a lovely spread of seasonal flowers, let it never be said that he was not a man of taste) and find that there was less than a month til the Millenium festival. He does not know if his father will let him go. He makes two separate shelves in his mind, one labelled ‘travel’ and the other labelled ‘escape’, and he will choose one or the other depending on what his old man says.  _ If the kid has a Major Crest, I might even let you go into town.  _

He strokes the nose of his mage-horse, Inessa, the afternoon before he’s due to leave. She’s a pretty thing, massive and pitch black with the eerily mellow disposition that her ilk was bred for. His father dislikes her on account that she was built for spell-slinging instead of tangible weapons, says he should become a Great Knight like him instead. Sylvain loves her all the more for it, and he believes that she loves him back. Animals are the only things on earth that love unconditionally. 

He knows the path of the guards patrolling the keep, every secret passage behind walls and under floors, every trail dipping through the jagged mountains. He’s known every little inch of his cage and how to pick the locks since he was twelve and too much of a coward to do anything but resign himself to treading the same path in the fine Almyran carpet on the floor. But now he’s older and still a coward but far more reckless, and hey, if Dimitri can outrun the gallows then he can slip out of the window in the middle of the night, yeah? 

He doesn’t know what he’ll get out of going to Garreg Mach. Even if everyone decided to follow a stupid whim on a promise made five years before a country-wide war, what are they going to do? Take a look at their situation and then commit mass suicide? They’ll leave a pretty pile of corpses at least. So he has no idea what he’s doing, but anything is better than sticking around in between cold walls and colder sheets. 

(Dimitri is not an option. Last he heard of him it was Felix cursing his name in the middle of a poorly organized pub crawl. They’ve both agreed to never speak of that night ever again, another lifelong promise to split the bill on.) 

It takes him a week and a half to make it to the monastery, the one spent travelling and the half spent covering his tracks. He knows his father will take any excuse to lock him up for good, and him running off into the woods is admittedly, a fairly decent one. He finds Ashe and Annette about three-quarters of the way there and they cling onto him like weird beetles for the rest of the hike. And then they get there, and they meet Ingrid, and Felix, and Mercedes and he’s all so happy they’ve survived, and they meet the professor too and he’s almost disappointed they managed to climb out of the pit they fell in. 

And he sees Dimitri, but not really, because in no way does that cute kid with the big blue eyes and weird half-smile have anything in common with- 

He goes to Dimitri in the cathedral, where he’s been dragging himself around like some angry tangible phantom, a ghost that doesn’t remember that it’s alive. He doesn’t get more than two metres from the hem of his ragged cloak because he’s seen him snap his wicked teeth at the professor and Mercedes and anyone else who tried to throw rocks at him like village children trying to catch the attention of a passing knight’s horse. 

He also stinks. Terribly. And for all that he’s built himself up to be a careless dunce he still values cleanliness more than most things in life. 

“So,” he starts, leaning up against a crumbled pillar like it’s the counter at a tavern and Dimitri is a lady who’s been staring too much at his ass, “you come here often?” 

He gets no response, of course. He did not respond to Felix’s grating edge or Mercedes’ soft pleas to  _ at least let me check your eye, Your Highness,  _ so he does not even give so much of a grunt to Sylvain’s half-assed witticisms. That’s fine. He’s full of enough hot air for the both of them. 

“Vengeance, eh? Never thought I’d hear that from you” he says as he checks his nails that are fully encased by his steel gauntlets. The thing about plate armour, he’s found, is that it does  _ wonders _ for hiding his figure. The corset was forcing him to sit up straight, and no one would believe him to be a total whore if he wasn’t slouching at least a bit. “You were always so  _ earnest _ , and it drove me completely fucking insane to think that you were just like that.” 

“Looking at you now though, I can’t help but feel that I was wrong about you,” he continues, “all of that stuff about rats, and blood, and hell, it doesn’t sound like you at all, when all you did back then was talk with your… royal affect. You were so confused with me that night, but I don’t think any of us knew you at all.” His exhale comes out white in the chilled night air. Dimitri’s left eye is a dirty marble in his sunken skull. 

“Now, I’m gonna be honest for once in my life so you better be paying attention, okay?” he winks sardonically. “I get it. I mean, if I had the chance to go completely batshit insane and try to kill the people that…” he trails off, because telling the truth to a corpse is still saying it out loud. “Well, most of them are probably dead. Old age, war, that stuff really cleans out the sewer, you know? And by the smell of it, you’ve had firsthand experience there.” 

He laughs a bit for good measure to sink in the joke and try to stop feeling like a fucking idiot talking to thin air. All it does is rattle off the walls and slip out the gaping hole in the ceiling. “And I really do think you’re disgusting, and not just because there are bugs in your cape right now. Felix said it was like you were a kid throwing a tantrum. Why do you get to be rewarded for this insanity shtick?” He scuffs his boot against the stone floor, and a pebble catches off his foot and ricochets to the hem of Dimitri’s cloak. “And I know I said that I thought he was full of shit at the time, but I’ve had about five years to mull it over and I’m starting to think that he was right. Just because I get it doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s fucked up. I mean, I think most of the shit I do is pretty awful too” he chuckles. 

The moon sits perfectly in the circle of the crumbled roof like the Goddesses huge apathetic iris, the light casting off Sylvain’s dark armour resembling the waves of the frozen lake at midnight. Dimitri stays stubbornly in the shadow of the pile of rubble that’s replaced the altar, a new dais for vengeance that he refuses to leave. “Remember when you said you loved me?” and anyone else would complain about the subject change, but Dimitri is merciful and continues his baneful silence. 

Sylvain’s laugh scrapes at his throat. “Yeah, you’re just like everyone else.” 

* * *

Felix prowls between pews like a feral wolf, the soles of his boots scuffing lightly against the floor as he puts them through its paces. His eyes are bright and narrow, staring at Dimitri’s silhouette, a permanent curl to his lip like he can smell him from the back of the cathedral. He has the same look when he corners Sylvain one evening, when he’s having fun slinging fire with his eyes closed and seeing how many dummies he can hit (so far, six.) 

“Reason?” is the first thing he says to him in a week. 

“Yep” he says, spinning on his heel. He waggles his fingers and winks. “Ladies love a guy with magic fingers.” 

Felix pinches the bridge of his nose like just being in Sylvain’s vicinity is giving him a migraine and turns back to the door. “I don’t know why I bother” he huffs, worn boots carving grooves in the sand. 

“Aw, come on. I was joking. You wanted to get in some training, yeah? I’ll leave.” Stupid question. Felix’s entire personality revolves around swinging his sword at anything within arms length. 

His hand rests on the hilt of his sword, a tried-and-true method of survival now instead of a nervous tic or a way to brood. “You’ve been talking with the boar.”

“Straight to the point, huh?” he shrugs. “Yeah, I have.”

“Why.” Cut through the cartilage, crack into bone. 

He’ll make Felix jump for it, he decides. If this is going to be an interrogation of his loyalties, he gets to have some fun too. “Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Felix huffs through clenched teeth. “Don’t play dumb.” 

“Maybe I just want to spend some time with an old friend.” That had been true, once. Criticized for his honesty, chastised for his lies. It’s hard to get a grip.

“You’ve seen what it's like. Do you expect a shoulder to cry on?”

He’s heard all this before, heard Felix announce his hunt across from him at the dining table over dessert, the  _ it’s  _ and  _ that’s _ , and he could plunge the arrow into the neck and get this all over with but he won’t, because he’s only survived this long by being as dishonest as he could get away with, so he just cocks an eyebrow and says “it?” like he’s simple. 

Felix scowls. “Don’t change the subject.” 

“Well, you know I like to run my mouth. Why not do it at someone who won’t complain?” 

“That’s it?” he says, giving Sylvain a look like he’s some unpleasant lump found under the heel of his boot. Check. Sylvain smirks. 

“Yep” he says, popping the ‘P’. 

He narrows his eyes. “You’d do best to keep away. You never know when it’ll bite your head off.” 

White moves first. He’s always preferred to play black. “Worried about me, huh? What about you? If you aren’t here, then you’re prowling around over there.” 

“Someone has to keep an eye on it.” Funny. Playing the guard was supposed to be Sylvain’s job. 

“So you get a monopoly on him?”

Felix digs the toe of his boot into the floor. “You won’t understand.”

Sylvain huffs. “I know i wasn’t tied to the hip with him like you were, but he was my friend too. I’m allowed to be around him if I wanna.”

“What’s your sudden fascination with the boar, anyways.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Whaddya mean?” 

Felix scowls in repost. “You just said you were never close, but now you’re chatting it up like it’s one of your playthings “

_ It, it, it _ , because Dimitri has lost his mind. If Felix knew about his brother’s blood painting his hands would he become part of the herd too? “I think you should stop calling Dimitri ‘it’.” 

He’s pacing now, his eyes narrow and glittering with impatience. “That thing isn’t human. It proved that a long time ago.” 

He shoves himself in Felix’s way, wedges himself in by catching a pauldron in between him and whatever bitter destination he’s pursuing. Felix stops and stares with pupils like two angry inkblots. “Why do you get to decide he isn’t human?” 

“I’m calling it as I see it” he bites out, and Sylvain expects to see fangs.

“It isn’t helping!” Sylvain doesn’t know why he’s trying to change Felix’s mind all of a sudden when it’s a task more difficult than trying to drag a mule through a swamp, some strange sense of indigence on Dimitri’s behalf driving him when the man isn’t there to defend himself.

“It’s too far gone for any sort of redemption!” 

Sylvain lets that settle on his tongue, lets the anger and tension in the air seep out like steam from a kettle. “I know you don’t believe that,” he says quietly “You want him back as much as all of us.”

“You don’t know a goddamn thing” he snaps, subdued but no less furious. “Just stay out of this.”

He brushes past, shoulder banging against Sylvain’s pauldron as he storms out the door, and Sylvain is left with nothing but empty retorts sitting on the tip of his tongue. He doesn’t turn back to watch the doors get the final word in, just faces the empty grounds with angry footprints in the sand being the only evidence of their argument.

Felix bangs and screams against walls that Dimitri isn’t human, watches his back with an arrow aimed straight at his heart. Sylvain is reminded of the people who stalked up and down the road by the tavern, the men with tangled beards getting caught in their wild gesticulations and eyes the colour of rotten milk. They’d wail and yell at anyone who had ears to hear them about the Goddesses righteous fury beaming down and swallowing them up; we are all human, we will be emancipated. Some called them madmen, some called them priests. The thing they have in common is that they both preach bullshit, ey lads? 

Felix has always been like that since they were kids, the strange wide-eyed intuition that seemed to be exclusive to children alone sticking on him like burrs stuck on their coats after they ran through the ravine. He’s been right often enough that Sylvain should trust him by now, but the funny thing about trust is that it’s just another horseshit faith people don’t shut up about. Dimitri is a monster, Dimitri is still human. They diverge there. Felix likes to call him an animal to comfort himself; a hunter doesn’t crouch down and wail over the body of their prey. Sylvain knows he’s human, he walks like a human, talks like a human, bleeds like a human, kills like a human. He’s seen humans in all forms and knows pretty well that they can be monsters too.

* * *

They’re due to Gronder Field within the month, and the tension of anticipation has the army tip-toeing around like everyone’s got knives strapped to their feet. Dedue’s reappearance boosts morale amongst the Blue Lions, but even a revival cannot stop them from looking South with tangible fear. 

Sylvain sits with Dimitri still, even with Felix’s audible disapproval emanating from the man’s every action. He doesn’t even talk to him half the time, having said all the things he needed to that night back in Ethereal Moon. If he does, he talks about whatever he can skim off the top of his head. His horse, Annette’s new passion project, the amount of steps it takes to get from the cathedral to his dorm. 

“You know,” he starts “you should just come and fuck me in my room. I bet that would sweat the sad outta ya.” 

No response. Good thing it was said mostly in jest. Getting fucked by Dimitri would probably be like getting fully sodomized by the Lance of Ruin. 

It isn’t like he’s completely silent though. His efforts might be rewarded with grunts or a puff of air blown through his nose. Occasionally he has the pleasure of Dimitri telling him to fuck off, all though in much more flowery terms. Even in the throes of insanity the man still talks like a little noble boy. 

_ He’s always been that way,  _ something reminds him. Little Mitya with his curtain-straight hair and rosy cheeks reciting hidden poetry from when his father was a teenager sounds the same as Dimitri now with his cloak and lance and eye plucked straight from a corpse in the depths of hell.  _ Always, always, always.  _

Dedue approaches him in the stables when the sun starts to burn orange as it streaks to the horizon. The light reflects orange in his hair and a deep burgundy off his flat expression as the noise of his heavy armour announces his arrival. He’s always had a soft spot for him back at the academy, a man both jaded beyond his years and an eighteen-year-old all the same. Sylvain almost wishes that he was better friends with him. 

“Dedue! What’s up?” he greets as the man rounds the corner. 

Dedue nods in acknowledgement. “I have a favour.” 

“Yeah? What is it?” 

If Sylvain’s eyes aren’t tricking him, which they might be because his eyesight is pretty shitty, Dedue looks a bit awkward. “I need you to wash His Highness.” 

Wait, what the fuck? 

“Huh?” he says after blacking out for a few seconds from sheer whiplash. 

“I need” Dedue says very slowly, like Sylvain hit his head a little too hard and never came back right, “you to wash His Highness”

One option is that Dedue suddenly has a fantastic sense of humor. This is Sylvain’s favourite option. The other option, which Sylvain decidedly does not like, is that he is completely serious.

“You aren’t… fucking with me right now, are you?” he says cautiously, like Dedue is an opaque body of water that he’s dipping his toe into to make sure nothing bites. 

“I assure you, I am not,” Dedue sighs, like he’s reconsidering his life choices “fucking with you.”

Which leads them to his next question. “Why me?” 

“His Highness has been… lacking in proper hygiene, and I worry for his health. Out of all of the Blue Lions besides myself and the professor, he is the most amicable towards you.” 

The fact that Dedue could read that Dimitri is  _ amicable  _ towards anybody is a shock in and of itself, much less someone like Sylvain, considering his main mode of communication these days consists of frantic yelling and complete silence. “Not that I don’t want to do this, but why not you or the professor?” 

Dedue, to his credit, takes Sylvain’s interrogation in stride. “The professor’s time is far too valuable to spend giving His Highness a bath, and I have prior arrangements that must be attended to. Besides,” he adds “You have always had a penchant for cleanliness.” 

Sylvain is touched that Dedue has noticed that about him. Sylvain is not touched that Dedue saw that and apparently thought ‘Yes, this is a man that would be fine with stripping His Highness down to nothing and possibly seeing his dick. I make good decisions.’ 

“Could you at least get him into the bathhouse for me? I don’t know how I’m gonna get him to move.” Dedue neither nods nor shakes his head at the request, which Sylvain counts as a victory on his part.

Which is how Sylvain ends up standing in the baths with arms laden with buckets and sponges and fresh clothing as well as the lavender-scented soap Mercedes lent him, a very disgruntled and fully-clothed Dimitri standing in the middle of the room like a shitty black obelisk. 

“I trust that you will be able to handle this” Dedue says, still very clearly not fucking with him. 

“Yep. All good, all good” he calls back as the door shuts, sealing his fate. 

The buckets rattle as he places them on the ground, slow and soft like any sudden noise would cause Dimitri to lunge over and tear out his throat. The next thing he does is kick a stool lying in the corner over to Dimitri, and he does not sit, just stands there the same way a noose carries a body. 

He likes to clean, likes to keep everything in order. His brother’s room was chaotic, with clothing strewn on the floor and books with spines cracked like wishbones. Sylvain was the opposite to him in everything he did down to his dying breath. He was always a little more  _ genuine,  _ more human, and Sylvain was- 

He isn’t too familiar with the process of washing another person. It’s a thing that lovers do, isn’t it? Baring their bodies down to the last inch and lavishing all the affection and care in the world on one another. It’s a little too idealistic for his tastes.

He isn’t naked, having taken his armour off beforehand, but he’s pretty close in nothing but a loose tunic and trousers rolled up to the knee. He’ll have to strip Dimitri down if he wants to make any progress at all.  _ But I don’t love him _ , he thinks.  _ We’re as far away from lovers as two people could possibly be.  _

“I’m gonna have to touch you, okay?” No response. “I’m not going to hurt you, I promise.” Again, no response. He doesn’t like to take silence as consent, but it is either this or to let Dimitri wallow in his own tangible misery. 

Dimitri’s cloak weighs leaden in his hands as he slides it off, his broad shoulders sagging under phantom pains. He holds it at arms length as he folds it in a dry corner, the tangled mass of fur caked with blood and mud and other things he doesn’t want to consider. Maybe he can ask Ashe or someone to wash it later. 

Next is his armour. He bends down to slide off his boots first, Dimitri’s eye drilling into the top of his skull. Funny, this scenario is what all good knights dream of, kneeling before their king to kiss the ring on their finger. And now he’s recreating it in the horribly mundane landscape of a bathhouse, in front of a man who probably hasn’t had a proper wash in months. The boots go in the corner, as well as his worn stockings which he honestly just wants to toss. Mercedes would be happy to whip up a replacement when she has the time. 

He hits trouble as he reaches for his gauntlets, Dimitri making a pained noise in his throat and jerking out of his grip. Sylvain doesn’t try to grab back, just holds his hands up softly and gives a soft smile. 

“Sorry, sorry. I guess hands are a problem area for you, eh?” he chuckles. Softer, he says, “I understand. I can’t stand being touched either.” 

Ditching the gauntlets, he moves around to his back to get rid of his pauldrons, and thankfully meets no obstacle. 

“Surprised, eh?” he says in the face of silence. “Yeah, given the way I act you’d never guess it, but I seriously hate it. Shit makes me wanna douse myself in lye and scrub for hours.” 

His breastplate and plackart go next, and Dimitri makes no comment as he works. “But Sylvain!” he mimics in a strained falsetto, “what about all of your dalliances? I can’t even say ‘affairs’ because I am an eight year-old with a burgeoning concept of sexuality!” He laughs, the sound echoing off the smooth brick walls. “It’s complicated, but maybe if you ask nice later I’ll tell you all about it.” 

Dimitri is… not in great shape, so to speak. His body is a knife honed to an edge, pure and flat and made for nothing but function. There isn’t a single scrap of flesh clinging to him that could be considered excess, all ribs and muscle pitched between bones. Sylvain had sanded down a few of his softer edges over the past few years as well, but not to this extent. 

“I’m gonna start washing your hair now, ‘kay?” he says, filling up a bucket and sudsing the water. The smell of lavender fills the room, and he sees Dimitri’s shoulders unclench, if just a touch. He considers that as a victory. Strange, he thinks as he begins working the soap into Dimitri’s matted locks, that he isn’t being more difficult. He’s seen Dimitri in his worse moods, tempestuous and volatile and  _ terrifying _ , and he figured that this would be much the same. 

“Remember when you broke my arm?” he starts, lathering Dimitri’s scalp with the blunt tip of his fingers. “I think I was about thirteen, and you were ten. I don’t know what we were doing, but I guess you wanted to show me something and grabbed my arm.” More soap, more water, unfold a rag and fold away everything else. “It hurt like a bitch, and I honestly wanted to scream at you for it, but when I saw your big eyes well up with tears I thought ‘It’s fine, I’ll keep quiet’.” 

“That was the first time I really started to get scared of you. You… were painfully earnest, but you also had one hell of a temper, and it was terrifying to have that directed at me.” He chuckles. “Still is.”

He pauses to push back the hair in his eyes with his forearm, and continues. “You know… You remind me of Miklan.” It’s fine to say this. No one is really listening, after all. “Remember him? I put a lance through his eye. Growing up, he always had a bad temper. That’s mostly what I remember about him from when I was really young. He liked to… liked to rag on me, trip me down the stairs, beat the shit outta me when the old man wasn’t looking, that sorta stuff. I was just his useless kid  _ sister _ who had never worked for a thing in her life.” 

“I knew… Well, before I knew that you wouldn’t really hurt me, but one part of me was just terrified out of my mind if you made so much as a loud noise, which you did constantly, by the way.” 

The soap runs down his back as he washes it out, strange formations of bubbles and grey water skating the length of his spine. He picks up a sponge next, suds it up and starts working lightly at the back of his neck. 

“Now? I can’t trust you at all” he laughs lowly. “You could run someone through with a lance and never realize that it was me, or Felix, or even Dedue.” His fingers run over the scars on his arms. He thinks about the scars hidden under his shirtsleeves and on his thighs. “I said I was disgusted with you too, and I still mean it. I get it,  _ Goddess _ , I get it, but...” The water in the bucket is murky, and he can see his reflection; pasty skin, ugly eyes, and all that shit. He shakes his head and turns back to Dimitri. “I’m talking myself in circles, aren’t I?” 

“I’m terrified, angry, and disgusted by you, but I don’t hate you. I don’t think I ever could.” 

He falls silent as he continues working. Scrub, rinse, skirt around the gauntlets, scrub, wring out the sponge, rinse,  _ don’t look too long at the scars on his back or his arms or legs. Just don’t look.  _ Wipe him off like the professor wipes the board _. Don’t think about how you can’t hate him, okay? _ Chalk dust settles on his nose. Dimitri shifts.  _ Don’t think about how he loved you once, because he was lying, because he’s a liar just like everyone else. _ Rinse. Repeat.  _ Don’t think about love, because you don’t know what it is.  _

“All right.” he announces as he wrings out the sponge. “You’re about as clean as you’re gonna get. We’re gonna scrub your armour and shit and have it back to you by the next mission, yeah? I brought a clean pair of clothes for you to wear in the meantime.” He sits and stares blankly like he’s nothing more than a doll propped up on a stool, and he recognizes the look in his eye so intimately that it feels like getting stabbed in the gut all over again. They leave after he dresses, and Dimitri immediately stalks off without even caring that his hair is wet and it’s still freezing out. Sylvain goes the opposite direction. 

He lies down in bed when the moon is at the midpoint of the sky because he doesn’t want to drink or flirt or fuck or whatever for some reason, just stares out the window and thinks about Dimitri shambling around out there like he does at night, and how he’s probably cold without his cloak, and why the hell should he care, and Dimitri, Dimitri, Dimitri, and how he doesn’t love him at all. 

Sylvain thinks about love like an abstract art piece, like a child drawing a map of the world with no reference at hand. He hears other people talk about love like it’s the best goddamn thing in the world, the love of the Goddess, the love of a mother, father, brother. His father makes him heir and plys him with comfort because he loves him, disowns his brother because he just loves Sylvain so much, right? His mother drowns herself in the lake three weeks after he’s born because she doesn’t love him enough, his brother shatters him like a fine Dagdan teacup because he is loved, the lords and ladies wink at him and touch him far too young and that’s love, so play along with them, will you? 

The people who talk about love are full of shit. For him love is bleeding out on the ground, love is another sweet word to be plied with so he’ll give up his disgusting body. He wields love like a thin dagger up the sleeve of his cloak and will tear it through the chest of anyone who’s brave enough or dumb enough to pretend to love someone like him. 

He doesn’t love Dimitri, because he wants to keep him safe. Dimitri dies and the ice breaks under his feet. Dimitri is resurrected like some sort of phoenix and the ice turns to glass and suddenly he’s forced to look down and confront how he feels, the disgust and fear and whatever the hell this is. Looking into his ugly face in the mirror he knows it isn’t love that he feels, it’s something else, some convoluted word with a definition lost to time and mass book burnings. For him it isn’t love, and that’s the best possible thing

* * *

The victory at Gronder is hollow. Cheering of  _ victory _ and  _ righteousness _ or whatever sits sour against the back of his eyes when he’s charred the faces off of familiarity. He sees Bernadetta’s slight form enveloped in fire on the hill and thinks about the book he never got to read the end of. Ignatz, whom he had pored over art for hours with, took an arrow straight through his glasses, Leonie burned to a crisp from a magical explosion conducted by his own flicked wrist. . 

He manages to track down Dimitri’s position in time to see Rodrigue die in his arms, Felix standing back wide-eyed and still like a deer listening to the crack of a branch under the foot of a hunter. He flees as soon as they arrive at the monastery after the dreadful march back, drags himself to the training grounds and doesn’t reemerge until the funeral. 

Dimitri acts odd- moreso than usual. In turns angry and brooding, silent and snapping at anything that moves. Dragging himself around, tearing at his hair, and it would all be his regular behaviour if not for the sense that he was being torn apart at the seams, like he looked at his hands and saw them splitting apart down the middle. He bolts one night, the professor hot on his heels, and returns hours after soaked to the bone with a light in his eye so different from the glare of the moon off a slimy marble. 

The army marches to Derdriu, and Claude passes the Alliance on to Dimitri’s shaking shoulders. Dimitri is different, again. There’s an effort to keep his head held high, to look people in the eyes instead of staring straight through them. There are periods where he is still erratic, talking to nothing, but whatever inspirational bullshit the professor managed to claw out of their empty head has clearly had an impact.

(Maybe he owes them for this, for resurrecting Dimitri a second time, but Sylvain still has a debt on their head. Maybe they can call it even.)

They cross to Fhirdiad and win a decisive victory there, the Kingdom rejoicing for the first time in a decade. The cheer is infectious, even from so high above. Sylvain stands on a small balcony in the Castle overlooking the city below, lanterns and banners flying in a bright map of nerves to the horizon. He takes a swig of whiskey, letting the liquid sting his tongue before swallowing. He used to hide here when he was younger, when the heavy boots and frantic bustle of the Castle got too overwhelming. He hides now from his own thoughts; Dimitri in his armour, Dimitri raising Areadbhar as a beacon for a charge, Dimitri’s smile, soft, strained, but there all the same. Dimitri, Dimitri, always fucking Dimitri. 

“Sylvain.”

Speak of the devil. Dimitri’s cloak drags on the ground as he comes to stand beside him. He looks… nice, for a change, In exchange for his armour is a set of simple, yet fine clothes; a deep blue blouse and black pants. A warm cloak covers his shoulders to protect him from the chill of the upper levels, and someone had the fucking astounding idea of pulling his hair back.  _ Goddess help me, _ Sylvain thinks as he takes another swig before turning to face Dimitri.

“Your Highness!” he raises his flask. “Or should I say, Your Majesty.”

Dimitri chuckles softly, and it would be a sight to behold even without a gut full of booze. “Please, I am not king yet. Dimitri is fine.” 

He props his elbows against the rail and faces inwards, looking over to Dimitri at the left. “Either way, you’re looking well.” Understatement of the century, but telling the king he cleans up really (really, really) nice is not socially acceptable, even by Sylvain’s standards. 

“I am feeling better, now that my thoughts are… unclouded.” Dimitri props his elbows against the railing besides him, looking not down at the city but up at the sky, the clouds of stars reflecting blue off his skin and bright in his eye. 

Sylvain takes another swig. “Really? That’s great.”

“Sylvain I…” his eye droops. “I came to apologize.” 

“This is an awfully familiar scene” he chuckles. A strange mirror of their meeting at the Goddess Tower, awkward apologies and half-buried truths lying on the ground like innards. If he told his younger self what would happen in five years his eyes would pop straight out of his skull. 

Dimitri does not share his mirth, his fingers clawing at the railing as he speaks. “My actions were utterly unforgivable, the things I had said and done, the way I had treated you all-” 

“Hey, hey,” he shifts over to mirror Dimitri’s position “don’t get lost in your head over this.”

His shoulders slump. “I… Yes, you are right. I must calm myself.“ 

Sylvain shakes his flask before slipping it aside. “I’m not gonna say that it’s okay, ‘cause that would be bullshit, but I understand, yeah? And you don’t have to go apologizing again after you already made that big grand speech in front of all of us.” 

“You’ve said that before.”

He raises an eyebrow. “What, the apologizing thing? No I haven’t.”

He doesn’t look over, his eye trained six million miles away somewhere else. “That you understand.” 

Sylvain’s breath catches in his throat like a bone, the implications of what Dimitri said drawing its nails across his skin. “You were listening.”  _ I can’t trust you. I can’t hate you either.  _ “The whole time?”  _ You remind me of Miklan. I could never hate you.  _

“My memory is disjointed, but yes, snippets of conversation usually. It is, frankly, hard to tell what was real and what was not, but that, I remember clearly.” The lights flicker down below. Maybe a lantern will catch fire and burn down the city. Maybe it will take Dimitri’s memory with it too. 

Sylvain elects to say nothing, because if he opens his mouth he might just try to bite Dimitri’s throat out. His fault for thinking he was a corpse all along, Dimitri’s fault for being fucking lucid enough to know something true about Sylvain. Fire take the both of them. 

Dimitri looks over. “What exactly did you mean by that? If you do not mind me asking.”

And there’s the kicker. Every instinct he’s ingrained in himself since childhood screams for him to shut his mouth. Some tiny, new part of him says to extend Dimitri a branch, wilted or otherwise. He’s looking at him so wide-eyed and sad and eager all at once, and it makes him-

He’s getting sentimental. Whatever, it’s fine. Dimitri already knows enough about him anyways, might as well push the barb through and get it over with. 

“I haven’t…” he sighs, putting his head in his hands while Dimitri looks curiously. “Fuck, this is gonna be hard to talk about. I haven’t known a lot of good people in life, and a lot of them have done some pretty terrible shit to me.”  _ Goddamnit Dimitri stop looking at me like that.  _ “They completely ruined me, and I just… If I could tear them apart,  _ Goddess,  _ I would do it in a second. I think about what they did every single day of my life and the fact that they’ve all gotten off scot free drives me fucking insane.” 

There. Dimitri can draw whatever implications he wants from that, and Sylvain still gets to skirt around the topic. They’re both happy. 

“Is this about your brother?” Dimitri asks, eye wide.

O Goddess, please shut this fucker up. Too much honesty and not enough liquor in the world to get him through this conversation without wanting to run off the balcony. “Yeah, sort of. Can’t really tell you more.” Because if there’s one thing he’s learned is that Dimitri has never and will never be able to take a fucking hint. 

“That is fine. I pressed too much.” 

He shrugs. “Hey, no worries. I saw you at your worst, so it makes sense that you’d get to see a bit of me too, yeah?” Easier just to consider this another debt, and not borne from some feeling of- what? Solidarity? Comradery? 

_ Love?  _ His booze-soaked sponge of a brain supplies. Wring it out, toss it over the edge. Fire take you too, fucker. 

“I suppose.” Dimitri says, straightening. “I should leave now.”

“Huh, why? We were just getting cosy.” It’s not that he wants him to  _ leave,  _ it’s just that getting philosophical is terrible for the both of them, like two shrivelled peas in a rotten pod. That aside, he really was enjoying his company.

Dimitri looks down. “You are not… uncomfortable?“

Getting drunk is far, far, better than sex. They both make him feel like complete shit, but at least he can get hammered enough to get through this burning wreck of a conversation. Sex is a bad conversation itself. Hindsight 20/20. He takes a swig. “Man, you heard everything, eh? Just my luck.”

Dimitri, to his credit, looks apologetic. “I am sorry.” 

Sylvain sighs. “I said no apologizing, didn’t I? And yeah, I meant it. You’re a fucking scary dude, yeah? And you haven’t exactly done much to make me change my mind-”

He wilts. “I understand. I-”

“I wasn’t finished.” he waves, ignoring Dimitri’s shocked expression. “You haven’t done much to change my mind in the past, but lately… You feel different. I think you are different. It’s hard to explain, but you aren’t academy Dimitri, or even the DImitri of two months ago. You’re still, no offence, kinda fucked up, but you’re trying so hard to be better, and I think that counts for a lot.”

“Truly?” his eye shines wide, filled with something adjacent to hope. 

“Truly. And I think if you keep… doing whatever you’re doing, prove that there’s nothing to be scared of, then one day maybe I’ll get to look back and think about how stupid I was.” And it’s true, because whatever it is he feels about Dimitri is… nice. It’s nice to spend time with him when he’s like this, to talk and look at the stars, look at him and his hands and eye and hair, to be friends again and maybe- 

Dimitri straightens and bows, which Sylvain finds very cute. “I will do my utmost to strive towards that goal. You are a dear friend, and it pains me to think that I cause you such distress.” 

And he smiles. Really, truly smiles, despite how stupidly formal he’s being about this like it’s some sort of royal contract. “Well, I wouldn’t word it that way… But yeah. I look forward to it. “

They fall silent and stare up, the sky casting black and blue over the glowing streets of Fhirdiad. It’s comfortable, two people simply existing side by side. The party goes on down below but he feels no desire to join. Not when Dimitri is right there next to him. 

“Hey, Dimitri?” he says without looking over.

“Yes?”

“Would you mind not telling anyone about what I said?” 

He sees Dimitri shift in the corner of his eye. “Of course. I would never tell anyone without your permission.”

He thought as much, but it’s nice to have some insurance. “Thank you.”

“I will tell everyone that you called me by name, though.” he says jokingly, a rare playful smirk spreading across his lips.

“I didn’t…! Ah, I did, didn't I?” he laughs. “Shit, I’m never gonna live this down…”

Dimitri joins in, and it’s prettier than any painting he’s ever seen. “You will have to continue doing that from now on.” 

He bumps up against Dimitri’s elbow. “Really?”

“As your king, I command it” he bumps back. 

“You just said you weren’t king yet!”

Dimitri raises his eyebrows, looking so genuinely shocked that Sylvain bursts out in laughter again. “I suppose I did.” 

He shakes his head, settling down. “And won’t people get the wrong idea if I keep calling you Dimitri? Not even Dedue calls you that. “

Dimitri goes quiet, and then looks over at Sylvain. “Would it be the wrong idea though?” he asks, a soft something laid across his face.

He smiles, mirroring it. “I guess not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter is going to be when I get to unleash all my post-post-timeskip extrapolation including sylvain and dimitri growing their hair out and attempting to grow beards. and kissing. sorry if you came here looking for smut, I can't write a decent sex scene to save my life.


	3. chase the tear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sylvain struggles with love, and Dimitri shares some truths.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank god this is done. This chapter is almost entirely composed of dialogue, which I hate writing. If it isn't pretentious introspection then I do not want anything to do with it. This was also originally going to be longer and contain some post-AM stuff (of which I have multitudes of) but I wanted to work more on other projects
> 
> Sorry for the really (really, really) late update! I was too busy ignoring my schoolwork and playing skyrim. 
> 
> cw for discussions of abuse, self-harm, gore, mild suicidal ideation, some vague nods to sylvains whole trough of sex problems, and issues with the concept of love that are a total slog

“What will you do when you return?” Dimitri asks him as the army marches across Gronder. He pulled his horse back to where Sylvain was heading his battalion to his great delight and Dedue’s massive dismay. He’s generally a gentle guy, but he doesn’t doubt his capacity to smother him at night if he distracts Dimitri too much. 

“Haven’t really thought about it, actually” he says, stretching in his saddle. “Go home, get hitched, pop out a couple kids until the old man gets off my ass. Not that I really want to.” 

“Ah” Dimitri hums, turning ahead. “I cannot see you as someone who would resign themself to that.” 

He smiles thinly even though Dimitri can’t see it. “We’ve got time to learn about each other.” 

“That we do” he nods as the joke misses his head by a wyvern’s length. “I am sorry. I have offended you.” 

“It’s all fine. I told you no more apologies, right? That applies here too.”

Dimitri flushes an excellent red that contrasts nice against a swell of blue. He really does make a nice picture, his bright cape against the neutral tones of his horse and the fields backed against the dusting of white across the light blue sky. “All right. Well, what would you want to do? If you were not to er… ‘get hitched’ and bear children.” The way he tries to mimic him nearly knocks Sylvain clean off his horse. 

“Go back to the way things used to be,” he grins. “Date a girl, date another. Have a little fun, you know?” He’s never really gotten what he’s wanted. He learned not to make wishes a long time ago. 

Dimitri huffs. “And here I thought you had changed.” 

“Hey, you don’t have to stay around and lecture me. Dedue’s looking real lonely up front.” 

“No, no. I would miss your company, lectures aside” he shakes his head. “Tell me... what do you think of marriage?”

“Hate to be tied down to one person. You know me, I like a little excitement in life.” He chuckles, but lets it fall at Dimitri’s raised eyebrow. “Sorry, sorry. No more lectures. In all honesty… I’m not sure? I hate the idea of getting married off to whoever wins the bidding war and being nothing but a housewife. Even the idea of having children terrifies me.”

“What about marriage for love?” Dimitri asks quietly. 

He laughs a little harder than necessary. “I never took you for a romantic type! Maybe you and Dorothea should talk.”

Dimitri wilts. “Love is out of the question, then.” 

“It’s unrealistic in most cases. For me? I…” he grimaces. “I don’t think I could.” 

“Love? Or marry for love?”

When he was a kid he used to stumble into nettles and poison ivy all the time, big blue eyes glistening with tears as Sylvain inevitably patched him up. He hasn’t changed a bit, just switched from stinging plants to conversational pitfalls and knitting his thick eyebrows together sadly when he fucks up. Bandages and soothing words to smiles and deflective laughs. Sylvain hasn’t changed much in that regard either. 

“What’s your fascination with love all of a sudden, eh? Got your eye on someone?” 

“I-” he coughs and flushes deeper, his cheekbones a brilliant red. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.”

“Really? Who’s the lucky gal?” he stumbles at Dimitri’s expression. “Or guy, if you fight for the other side.” 

“Ah, he- uhm” he somehow flusters even further, sweat beading at his temple. “He is male.” 

He laughs. “Fantastic insight. C’mon, tell me more.” 

“He is- kind. Perhaps not outwardly so, but deep down he is fiercely devoted to the ones he cares for. And incredibly smart as well.” Dimitri’s expression softens, a flower unfurling in a stained glass window. It would be… nice, to be loved by him. Being on the receiving end of that expression would be like basking in the sun. To be able to love like that, wholly and tenderly like cradling glass in his palm- 

_ He said he loved you once _ , his mind supplies.  _ And how did you feel?  _

Easy question: like he did with everyone else. Blank faces, groping hands, liar, liar,  _ liar. _ But now Dimitri’s expression is genuine. Good on him, to have moved on. Fibbing doesn’t suit sincerity personified. 

“Strong, as well. And he is very-” he coughs. “Very handsome. He is… anguished though. You could say we are kindred souls. To see him suffering so plainly breaks my heart. I would shoulder his burdens in a mere second if only to see him smile unfettered.” 

“Wow,” he says after a beat, genuinely dumbfounded. “That’s… actually really sweet.” 

Dimitri ducks his head, a flush of red poking out through his hair. “It is simply how I feel.” 

“Well?” he leans over enough to jab Dimitri with an elbow. “Who is it?”

He shakes his head, looking sad for a moment before replacing it with a grin. “I cannot tell.”

“Aw, c’mon. Nothing for me and my loose lips?” he says, feigning offence with one hand over his chest like a fainting noblewoman.

“A king must have some secrets.”

“Fair enough” he chuckles. “I won’t pry if you don’t want me to.”

“I appreciate that,” Dimitri says dryly. “I should head up now. I would like to discuss our plan of attack with the professor.”

“Sure thing. Tell ‘em I said hi.”

“Of course,” he replies, giving Sylvain one last oddly wistful smile before riding ahead. 

He feels strange, watching his cloak flutter as he trots off. He felt strange as Dimitri described his crush with such a longing expression he almost fell in. It feels like- what,  _ jealousy?  _ something whispers. Jealousy for Dimitri, being able to describe some adjacent word to love with such conviction? Jealousy for whatever lucky mystery guy he’s pining for, to be on the receiving end of the king’s affections? He knows he feels something for Dimitri that sits like a stone in his guts. He’s close with him, is- was. He spends more time with him nowadays than Felix and Ingrid. The thing is, somewhere in between ritualistic dissections and the dumping of his guts on church floors Dimitri managed to worm his way in.

The thing is, he isn’t sure that he wants him out. 

* * *

Merceus falls like cards after they storm the gates, the blue banners of Faerghus rolling down bloody walls. His armour weighs heavy on his shoulders as he stumbles into his tent. The aftermath of the battles always seem to be just as frantic as the fighting itself; tactics, security, searching for the lost and burying the dead. Speeches, as well. Words to toast to, a solid confirmation of victory from the King. He never thought himself particularly charismatic, but the professor said otherwise. 

_ “I do not think they would want to hear from me” _

_ “They need their king, Dimitri. Speaking to them has more of an effect than you could imagine.” _

_ “I- uhm. I do not exactly have anything written out.”  _

_ “Eh? Whatever, just make something up. That’s what I did in class. Turned out fine… Usually.”  _

He suppresses a groan as he reaches back to undo his cloak, shoulders shifting and stretching the angry wound laid across his back. A lucky strike from a falcon knight who managed to graze him with her lance before Ashe shot her down. Painful enough to be distracting, but any wound of his would be far too petty to bother the healers with. 

It is not like he is incapable of healing. He has bandages and several vulneraries, which is more than enough. Now, if only he- could- reach-

“Oi, Your Majesty! You in there?” Sylvain says from outside his tent, causing him to drop the bottle. He bites back a swear as he fumbles it, spilling the contents on the grass. 

“Yes, I am! Could you please wait a moment?” he answers, red-faced from hanging upside down trying to pick up the accursed bottle. He stands to cover himself, a whine escaping his lips as his wound cries out at the movement. 

His shadow shifts. “Are you okay? You didn’t skip out on healing, did you?” 

“I-” Curse Sylvain and his damnable ability to read people. “I am fine.”

“Oh, so that means you aren’t,” he says, the tent flaps fluttering. Of course he forgot to tie them, preoccupied with his wound as he was. “Turn around, I don’t wanna see your cock.” 

He brushes in while ignoring Dimitri’s stuttering. He does, contrary to popular belief, have pants on, so Sylvain does not see his ‘cock’. He covers his crotch with his hands anyways, his face still burning as Sylvain gives his bare chest a clinical sweep of the eyes. 

“Goddess” he says with a dry smirk. “You’ve gotten bulky since the last time I got you naked.” 

Terrible, terrible Sylvain. Sometimes he cannot believe that he loves him, a persistent dull ring in his ear returning in full force five years after an ill-fated petty crush. 

“I would prefer if you would not patronize me” he frowns. 

He chuckles. The sound melts like butter. Saints, does he have it bad. Overcompensation for his years of hell? “Alright, alright. Just calling it as I see it. Now show me where you’re hurt.” 

He obliges, turning around and cringing at Sylvain’s low whistle. “It is nothing to be concerned about. I am able to treat it myself.” 

“I don’t think slapping a vulnerary and some bandages on this is gonna cut it. Were you even gonna wash it first?” he says, looking around for a bucket and rags. 

“I… was not.” He knows in theory how wounds are treated, how to bandage and stitch, tear and stitch again, to bleed, rot, and fester, to-

“-Dimitri? Are you okay?”

“Hm?” he blinks. “Yes, I am fine.” 

Sylvain huffs behind him as he rolls up his sleeves. “I’m gonna go get some water, alright? Don’t move.” 

“Where would I go?” he says to Sylvain’s back as he brushes out of the tent, bucket bouncing against his thigh. Nowhere. Very well. 

He cannot decide whether he should relish in Sylvain’s attention while he has the chance or push him away entirely. To have him look upon him with fondness yet again and be on the receiving end of his concerns fills him with a quiet sense of relief he thought not available to him. But again, to be on the receiving end of his concerns, to be treated like a  _ human _ \- 

The price of concern for Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd is a steep one indeed. 

“Alright. I got water” Sylvain announces, water sloshing as he sets the bucket down. “Get on the bed, will ya?”

Dimitri’s ears burn as he sits, the implications either flying over Sylvain’s head or sitting comfortably on his tongue. Knowing him, it is almost certainly the latter. 

The wood of his cot creaks as Sylvain joins him, swirling a rag in the water before wringing it out. “This is gonna sting” he warns before dabbing the cool cloth at his right shoulder.

“I did not think of you to be much of a healer” he says, wincing as the water trickles its way to the dimples of his back. 

Sylvain barks a laugh. “Right? I’m not much of an intellectual type but apparently I have a knack for white magic. Mercie said it was useless without a bit of practical knowhow, so here I am.” 

“I wish you would not say that” he mutters. The water soaks into the waistline of his trousers. The fabric clings. 

The cloth moves down. “What? Don’t tell me you disapprove of magic now.”

He shakes his head as he stares at his crossed legs. “That you are not smart. I know you try to hide it, but you are truly intelligent.” 

The rag pauses on his back before the hesitant dabbing continues. “I wouldn’t say that. I mostly just get lucky, honestly-”

“Why do you do that?” he says, nails wrinkling his trousers. “And-” he interrupts as he hears Sylvain go to retort, “do not say that you do not know what I am talking about.”

“Wow, you’ve really got a read on me, huh?” he chuckles. “I feel like every time we sit down and talk you end up interrogating me.”

“Is it such a crime to want to know more about my friend?” 

The cloth jerks roughly across his wound. He imagines it scraping his skin off next. Wear him down like a pebble on the coast, scrape out choked declarations and his other eye. “You’ve known me since you were in a diaper, Your Majesty. I don’t think there’s much to find out.” 

_ I don’t have a lot going on up here, you know? _

“I feel like I do not know you at all” he says, tracing the knife-edge folds in the sheets instead of thinking about looking at Sylvain, the way he looks like the edge of a broken mirror whenever someone presses in on him too much. “I did not even know you had a brother until we were sent to kill him, and then you say that he had been hurting you your whole life?” He’s talking rapidly now, words welling up in his throat the way bile does, spilling on his sheets and hands and staining Sylvain’s as well. “How much have you been hiding from m- from us?” 

The cloth jerks away from his back, Sylvain’s shuddering breaths ghosting past his ear. “Why do you always do this?” he says after a pause. “What do you need to know about me so badly? Don’t you trust me?” 

“Of course I do. You are incredibly dear to me.” He desperately hopes that Sylvain cannot see the red tips of his ears through his hair. “That is why I wish to know you. I hate the idea that you are quietly suffering the burden of your silence.” 

“Speak for yourself” he chuckles dryly. “You’re the man who snuck off to his tent with a foot long gouge down his back.” 

“It is not the same.” 

“Why do you get to play the martyr but go all twitchy as soon as I have a few secrets?” he huffs. “You don’t let anyone help you either.” 

“I am letting you,” he says, shifting to the side. The absence of his eye leaves only a red blur to his left. He imagines a frown on its lips. 

Sylvain deflates, rubbing at his eyes. “Dammit… You haven’t changed a bit, huh? Always so fucking earnest.” 

“You do not have to tell me,” he prods softly. “But I do not want you to feel as though you must hide yourself from me. You have all witnessed me at my lowest, when I could hardly be called human. It is okay for you to reveal yourself as well.” 

He chuckles weakly, head still buried in his hands. “You make it sound so easy. I’m almost tempted.” 

He wants so badly to reach out to him, to put a hand on his back, to embrace him, take his hands in his, to comfort him in any way beyond words. Sylvain’s confession from months ago holds him back by the scruff. “Do not feel pressured.” 

“Alright…” He sits up. “Alright. I can tell you why I act dumb, but can I get to ask a question in return? You know I don’t like a one-sided relationship.” 

“Very well.” 

“My…” he sighs, picking at the creases of his trousers. “My brother was slated to be the heir, yeah? He was about seven years older than me, smart, strong, everything an heir should be, except he didn’t have a Crest. Then I came along, totally useless except for my Crest. He got shoved off almost immediately. Tutors said I was smart too, really smart. Guess the old man liked to rub it in his face, ‘cause he would always beat my ass for that. I just sort of… learned to hide it I guess. Didn’t wanna give him another excuse. ‘Sides,” he chuckles, “it’s easier to get into the pants of someone who’s too stupid to know what’s going on.” 

His nails tear trenches in the thin padding of the cot. Sylvain’s body sits on the same surface, but his eyes are somewhere far colder. Some frigid, terrible feeling settles along the blood in his veins that weighs far heavier than venom. He could press, but he won’t, because Sylvain is in his fingers like the stem of a champagne flute. He knows too well how easy they are to break. 

“So,” he turns. There’s a sharp gleam on his face from the torch flickering in the centre of the tent. “My turn now. What happened to your eye?” 

“I tore it out” he looks away as Sylvains expression melts down to abject horror. “My father, my stepmother, Glenn, everyone... They would not leave my sight. To tell you the truth, I do not remember it well, for the better I suppose.” 

He pauses to draw in a breath that rattles through his nose. The look in Sylvains eyes resembles broken glass. 

“I recall sheer desperation- I would have done  _ anything _ to have them out of my sight, anything at all for some amount of relief. And I did.” His fingers drift across his eyepatch, like he could find any phantom sensation there. “I tore it out with my bare hands and threw it aside like a mere piece of trash.” 

His eye travels down Sylvains tense arm to see his hand clenched in the sheets halfway in between the gap created by their thighs. Easy to close the distance and take it. Easier still to shatter it entirely. 

“More than that, I remember the pain” he continues. “The agony tears through everything else- my face burning like I had been lying halfway in the eternal flames.”

“Goddess…” Sylvain breathes out, halfway a prayer and quarter a plea for mercy. 

His voice comes out shyer than the flutter of a moth hurling itself at a lantern as he speaks, the words clawing out through the gaps in his teeth. “I relished in it. That is the most horrible part to me, that I welcomed it as- as some form of repentance, I suppose. I wonder… Does that make me some sort of depraved creature? To have welcomed it?” he lets out a breath. “That I still welcome it even after all this time?” 

“No-” Sylvain says with an urgency belonging only in battle, words sharp as the crack of a whip. “You’re not any sort of creature or- or a monster or whatever for thinking like that. It’s… Shit.” he rubs at his eyes. “It hurts like hell, yeah? But that’s the whole point.”

“Yes,” he says slowly. “Exactly. Sylvain, you-”

“Hey, we’re talking about you now. And I don’t want you to feel like that ever again.” 

Dimitri flushes deep, looking down at the breadth of space between their pinkies. He does not see Sylvain’s face, but he knows at that moment that he is being as sincere as anything else in the world. “It is not so simple,” he whispers. 

“I know” his finger twitches, brushing lightly against Dimitri’s. He wants to grab onto the second of contact in fistfuls. “I hate knowing that you feel that way. I-” 

He takes it, overlapping Sylvain’s slimmer hand with his, his palm sliding over the rough scars coating the back of his hand.. He flushes deep, the freckles on his face standing black against red, but miraculously does not pull away. “It is okay. You do not have to say any more.” 

“Yeah… Okay.” He flexes his hand, fingers interlocking with Dimitri’s. “As much as I like this, you’re gonna have to let go if you want me to finish healing you.” 

“Just a while longer,” his voice catches in his throat as he squeezes his hand. . 

“I can do that,” Sylvain says with a smile, and he squeezes back.

* * *

Enbarr falls as the sun sets the horizon in a thin blazing line. Dimitri’s shadow casts eastward and blends with the dark blue spread by the exterior pillars of the Imperial Palace as he emerges. Edelgard’s head remains firmly on the husk curled in the throne room. Her strange white hair is not snagged on the grooves of Dimitri’s gauntlet as he drags out his bloody prize. Sylvain is glad. 

Dimitri stays out of his reach for what feels like years. First he is whisked off to the makeshift infirmary almost immediately after victory is announced, which Sylvain doesn’t begrudge because Goddess knows the man wouldn’t go himself. Then, during the ensuing celebrations he can’t get within six feet of him without being repelled by the throngs of people around him. Dimitri keeps a close-lipped smile on his face that stretches at his cheeks and makes his eye sag. 

The ride to the monastery he is either flanked by Dedue and the professor or by his lonesome. It could have been a perfect opportunity to check on him, but something tells Sylvain that he needs his space. To think, to breathe, to mourn, he does not know, but space all the same. He does not see him at the monastery either, after the full week of celebrating left them all drunken and exhausted. They make their plans to leave; Annette and Mercedes ride to Gaspard with Ashe. Ingrid flies to Galatea. Lorenz and Marianne head eastward. Dorothea stayed in Enbarr with Manuela and Ferdinand. With how little he’s seen of Dimitri he assumes he had left with Dedue some time ago. 

He wasn’t lying to Dimitri when he said that he wasn’t thrilled with the prospect of being faced with life in Gautier. He’s sure his father has a veritable fucking mountain of potential suitors to sift through for him. Felix waits impatiently for him to get his shit together as he keeps one foot resigned to the stirrup of his horse and another rooted firmly on the old cobblestone, saying  _ one more day, just one more day.  _

Felix is out for blood that day though, and makes him run the perimeter of the monastery before he manages to lose him somewhere around the dining hall. The Goddess Tower seems like a good place to hide- out of the way, cramped, sentimental. That is, until he jogs through the doors and catches a swathe of blue with its back facing him.

“Dimitri!” he pants, out of breath from the marathon Felix put him through. “I thought you had left!”

Dimitri turns his head, a soft smile on his lips. “I had decided to linger. I am not ready to go back just yet.”

Sylvain settles next to him, elbows propped on the balcony. “I’m glad. I was kinda worried that I wouldn’t be able to see you for a while.”

He cocks his head. “But what are you doing here? I thought you had left with Felix.” 

“Right…” he grimaces, Felix’s scowling face haunting him. “He’s been out for me all morning, said I was taking too much time.”

“Really?” Dimitri chuckles. “I cannot imagine that.” 

“Yeah, well. Not too excited about heading back home,” he says, tugging at the hair curling at his neck. 

Dimitri’s eye flutters. “I cannot imagine that you would receive a warm welcome.” 

“Ha! You’re telling me.” Even if he did end up in the force that would eventually topple the Empire, he ran away to do so. It’s practically guaranteed what his father will care about more. “Now that the war is over I don’t really have an excuse for why I’m not having little crest babies left and right.” 

He cringes, cheeks wrinkling his eyepatch. It’s pretty cute. “That… sounds quite awful.” 

“Eh,” he shrugs. “That’s how it is.” 

Dimitri shifts closer, his elbow nudging his on the cool stone rail as he leans in. “You could come stay in Fhirdiad if you truly do not wish to return.”

“Wishful thinking, huh?” he chuckles. “That’d be nice.” 

His eye glimmers bright in the sun reflecting above, cheeks flushed and full. “I am completely serious. Your counsel and company has been indispensable so far.”

“You have Dedue and Felix. What do you need a good for nothing like me for?” Dimitri’s eyebrows furrow, and he hurries to add “‘Sides, wouldn’t your mystery man get jealous?” 

“...My what?” he asks, before his eyes go wide. “Oh, yes. Him. I do not believe he would mind.” 

He isn’t the jealous type. Interesting that he wouldn’t get peeved at Dimitri constructing his own personal harem. “When are you gonna tell me who he is anyways?” he says, smirking. “I can keep a secret well enough for the both of us.” 

Dimitri flushes and scratches at his neck. “I suppose I can give you a few hints.”

He jumps dramatically, fumbling at his waistband. “Really? Hold on- lemme write this down.”

“Sylvain.” Dimitri huffs. 

“Sorry, sorry,” he says, faking surrender. “Go on. I’m all ears.”

A tiny smile stretches at the corner of his lips as he pauses to think. Sylvain can’t stop himself from falling deep in the moment’s brief respite from speech. “He is close.” he settles finally. “Very close.” 

“Uh huh.”

“We went to the academy with him. Same house, in fact.” 

Sylvain grins. “Tough luck, falling for a Faerghus boy. Lemme guess- Ashe?” He wonders why he isn’t too fond of the idea. 

Dimitri shakes his head. “No, not him.” 

“Dedue then? How romantic, a king and his retainer.” Dedue is a good man, not to mention very (very) handsome, but Dimitri’s expression does not shift.

“Dedue is very dear to me, but no. Besides, I believe he has pledged his heart to another.” Dimitri shifts closer, the swell of his arm pushing against Sylvain’s. He wonders how warm he would feel if he wasn’t wearing his armour still. Sylvain shed his the first moment he got, and Dimitri is walking around in the metal like he’ll be called to battle at any moment. 

“Oho?” he smirks. “I’ll have to bug him about that until he tells me.”

Dimitri grimaces. “I would rather you would not.” 

“Kidding! But… That just leaves Felix,” he winces. “Don’t worry, I’ll have plenty of nice things to say at your funeral.” 

“What? No- honestly, for someone so clever you can be awfully dense,” his brow twists, and he’s grabbing Sylvain’s hand and he’s letting him and staring him straight in the eye as he presses in. “It’s you, Sylvain. I love you.” 

His hand curls. Dimitri is a pane of glass begging to be shattered. Blood howls in his ears. Three shelves for three options; he throws himself off the balcony, he throws Dimitri off instead. They both fall off the balcony and hold hands the whole way down. He lets Dimitri keep his grip. 

“Awfully persistent, Your Majesty.” His voice cracks in his throat, frail and wavering. “Haven’t you used this line on me before?” 

“Please, just hear me out.” He takes his other hand into his like he’s a ragdoll. For all intents and purposes he is. His arms weigh nothing and everything all at once. “I meant what I said all those years ago, and I mean it now as well. Even after all this time… My feelings for you have been one of the few things to remain constant.” 

He thinks he’s going to vomit, or drop dead. Dying in someone’s arms is pretty romantic. It would be a nice outcome for the both of them. Dimitri has such a pitiful look in his eye and he doesn’t know if it’s for him or for Dimitri’s own shattered heart. 

“Why me?” he says, pulling away. “I’m not… Kind or strong or any of the shit you described. Have you met me at all? I’m cruel and useless. Don’t waste your time on me.” 

Dimitri’s hands are left hanging. He stares at them for a moment, then orders them aside. “Do not assume that I do not know how I feel.” 

“Dammit, I…” he sighs, running his hands over his face. “I’m so, so far beyond damaged goods I don’t even… Fuck!” he chokes, hysteria bleeding through his scalp and he runs his nails through his hair. “I mean, I don’t even know if I can reciprocate! Is that what you want?” 

“What do you mean?” he asks softly, hovering close. It drives him insane with how dim and patient he’s being. What a guy! People like him shouldn’t be anywhere near people like Sylvain. “...Is that a rejection?”

He jams the heel of his palms into his eyes. Anything to not see the sheer fucking heartbreak scrawled across Dimitri’s pretty face. “I want this to be real so badly. I want to be able to love you, I just… I’m such an awful fucking person, you know?” he chuckles. 

“It is fine. You do not have to accept. So long as you know you are loved, I will be content.” Even without looking Sylvain can hear him deflate. It’s tragic. He’d take the angry, raving man over whoever this sincere bastard is any day. 

“Wait- nonono, fuck-” he jabs a hand out, grabbing Dimitri’s wrist. His eye widens in surprise, the strange afterimages of his palms dancing across his face. “I want to be with you. When you were gone I was broken and didn’t even realize it. Spending time with you now I’m the happiest I’ve been in ages, I just… don’t know if I can love you.” 

“Sylvain, listen to me,” he says, curling his wrist to take Sylvain’s hand in his once again. The rim of his eyes sting. “I love you, and I will say that as many times as you need to hear it. Even if you cannot love me back, that will not change my mind.” 

“Ha… Pretty words…” he chokes, rubbing at his eyes. Dimitri’s face wavers behind a film as he presses in, knuckle brushing his cheek. 

“I will ask again. Please, come to Fhirdiad with me.” His gaze is unwavering, a piercing arrow shot straight into his skull. “You do not have to stay forever- just for a month. That is all I ask.” 

He sags onto Dimitri’s frame, burying his face in the crook of his neck. Dimitri clings in return, holding him like he’s the last person he’ll ever touch. “Yeah… Yeah, okay. I’ll come with you.”

“I am glad,” he chuckles warmly. “I was terrified out of my mind, honestly.” 

Sylvain gives a wet laugh, voice muffled in the warm fur of Dimitri’s cloak. “There is a good chance my old man might ride to the capital to drag me back.” 

Dimitri’s nose nuzzles into his hair. “He will have to get through me first.”

He sucks in a ragged breath, snot bubbling at his nose and dripping on Dimitri’s cloak like he’s some kind of pathetic kid, but something stops him from caring. It might be how Dimitri’s hands curl at his back, or how he slots perfectly into the space between his neck and shoulder, how he breathes and how his heart sounds and how he’s just  _ there _ , a warm solid mass existing in the world. He could love that, he thinks. He could be loved by that. 

“Hey,” he says, unburying himself from the nest he’s made on Dimitri’s shoulder. “Does this mean we can get a redo of our first kiss? I think I fucked that one up.” 

Dimitri flushes a hilarious shade of red, because apparently he can power through a whole confession with minimal blushing but the implication of any physical intimacy has him a brighter crimson than the entirety of the Imperial army. “Of- of course. Yes. We should kiss.” 

Sylvain leans in, nose bumping against Dimitri’s before he presses their lips together. It’s awkward, because Dimitri isn’t doing him the courtesy of leaning down and he doesn’t quite know what to do with his tongue and their lips are both chapped and it’s leagues better than the first time in every single way. He’s kissed so many people who he didn’t know at all, and seeing a familiar face on the receiving end as he opens his eyes is a feeling he’d like to indulge in again, and again, and again. 

Dimitri clings on even as he pulls away, his eye a bright and happy electric shade of blue against the red of his cheeks. Touch is a comforting weight for once, so he lets him stay and settles his chin on his shoulder like a tired bird. 

“You’re gonna have to tell Felix that there’s been a change of plans,” he mumbles into the fur. Dimitri’s shoulders tense for a moment, the way Felix makes people do. 

“I’m sure you’ll have plenty of nice things to say at my funeral by then,” Dimitri chuckles. 

“I already do,” he says, smiling even though Dimitri can’t see it, and readjusts his grip around his waist. He has no plans to leave for a while now, and when he arrives he won’t be alone. 

And maybe, he thinks, that could be what love is. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to the people who commented and kudos'd this! I kind of started hating this as soon as the first chapter was out, so any encouragement really helped. expect more dimitri/sylvain in the future, just don't expect it to be happy, at all. 
> 
> i'd share song links for the chapter titles but I have no idea how to link shit in the notes so just imagine what they sound like

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I was drunk when I wrote the tavern scene. This was originally supposed to be a one-shot but I decided to split it into three chapters because the document right now is 13k (and counting) and I knew that no one was going to read that. Expect updates soon, because I have nothing else to do in this quarantine.
> 
> Follow me on twitter/tumblr @mumagi


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